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DYNAMIC    IDEALISM 


Relationship  among  things  is  the  criterion  nei- 
ther of  a  life  nor  of  a  mind  that  exists  apart  from 
the  substance  of  the  universe.  It  is,  however,  the 
criterion  of  substance  itself,  and  as  the  central  truth 
about  things  it  bears  this  witness :  The  universe 
itself  lives ;  the  universe  itself  thinks. 


DYNAMIC  IDEALISM 

AN   ELEMENTARY   COURSE 

IN  THE 

METAPHYSICS   OF   PSYCHOLOGY 


FIRST  ENTERED   UPON  IN  LECTURES   BEFORE 

STUDENTS  IN  PHILOSOPHY  AT  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  MICHIGAN 


BY 


ALFRED    H.    LLOYD,   Ph.D. 

AUTHOR  OF  "CITIZENSHIP  AND  SALVATION" 


V     OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 


CHICAGO 

A.  C  McCLURG  AND   COMPANY 

1898 


LS  ±J    ~> 


Copyright 

By  A.  C.  McClurg  and  Co. 

a.d.  i8q8 


PREFACE. 


THE  following  chapters,  as  has  been  indi- 
cated on  the  titlepage,  are  made  up  from 
material  used  in  a  university  lecture-room,  but 
the  impulse  to  put  the  substance  of  the  lectures 
into  the  form  of  a  book  really  came  from  another 
source.  A  year  ago  I  gave  six  lectures  upon 
subjects  from  psychology,  before  the  Twentieth 
Century  Club  of  Detroit;  and  the  certain  diffi- 
culties as  well  as  the  apparent  successes  that  I 
met  with  in  those  lectures  led  me  into  the  writ- 
ing of  this  book. 

Accordingly,  throughout  the  ensuing  pages  I 
have  had  in  mind,  as  my  possible  readers,  those 
who  are  not  strictly  technical  students  in  psy- 
chology, and  on  their  account  I  have  tried  to 
avoid  the  more  serious  technicalities.  The  sub- 
ject, however,  is  a  deep  one,  and  it  deepens  as 
it  goes.  So  let  me  confess  here  that,  while 
always  courting  both  brevity  and  simplicity  and 
often  using  extremely  popular  and  large-written 
illustrations,  I  have  not  always  refrained  from 

181327 


VI  PREFACE. 

saying,  as  occasion  has  offered,  even  what  has 
seemed  likely  to  be  of  interest  only  to  psycho- 
logical specialists. 

My  standpoint  is  also  indicated  on  the  title- 
page,  at  least  in  part.  Not  only  am  I  heartily 
in  sympathy  with  such  thinkers  to-day  as  insist 
that  psychology  without  metaphysics  is  useless, 
if  not  absurd,  but  also  I  go  to  the  extent  of 
believing  that  real  psychology  is  metaphysics. 
I  have,  therefore,  whenever  considering  a  psy- 
chological theory,  been  more  interested  in  its 
relation  to  Dualism  or  to  Monism  —  that  is  to 
say,  in  its  metaphysical  implications  —  than  in 
any  of  its  mere  external  details.  For  example, 
the  physiological  or  the  paidological  statement  of 
any  fact  or  process,  or  the  abstract  statement 
from  any  other  field  of  inquiry,  has  always 
seemed  to  me  to  be  subordinate  to  the  meta- 
physical principle.  Only  the  metaphysical  prin- 
ciple can  make  any  fact  or  any  process  really 
concrete. 

And,  finally,  in  special  illustration  of  my  pre- 
dilection for  metaphysics,  I  may  say  that  I  have 
felt  that  the  first  duty  of  psychology  was  to  give 
a  distinct,  explicit  doctrine  of  the  soul.  Psy- 
chology must  not  and  cannot  tarry  any  longer 
at  either  the  body  or  the  mind  alone,  nor  even 
at  both  together.     "  Science  of  the   soul,"  the 


PREFACE.  Vll 

old-fashioned  definition,  which  has  been  scorned 
or  discreetly  neglected  by  modern  rationalism, 
is,  after  all,  the  true  definition.  Perhaps,  how- 
ever, the  scorn  has  meant  only  the  passing  of  a 
certain  idea  of  the  soul;  and  in  recognition  of 
such  a  possibility  I  have  usually  employed  the 
more  general  term,  "  self,"  for  the  soul-reality. 
Surely  there  is  a  soul-reality,  whether  there  be 
a  "  soul "  or  not. 

A.  H.  L. 

Ann  Arbor,  Michigan, 
November,  1897. 


CONTENTS. 


Introduction 


PAGB 

II 


part  I. 


THE  WORLD   OF  THINGS. 

CHAPTER 

I.    Part  and  Whole 35 

II.    Change 48 

III.  Organism 54 

IV.  The  Body 59 

V.    The  Outer  World 75 

VI.    The  Two-faced  Object,  or  Language     .    .  87 


part  11. 

THE  WORLD   OF   IDEAS. 

VII.    Ideas  as  Forms 97 

VIII.    Historical  Illustration 107 

IX.    Ideas  not  Forms  but  Forces 11 1 

X.    Illustrations  from  Education 123 

XI.    Body,  Mind,  Soul 129 

XII.    Time 147 

XIII.  A  Summary:  Dynamic  vs.  Formal  Idealism  158 

XIV.  Consciousness  as  Interest 166 

XV.    Thought  and  Language 178 


CONTENTS. 


part  HI. 

THE   WORLD    OF   ACTS. 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XVI.    Reaction  or  Interaction? 197 

XVII.    Will 209 

XVIII.    The  Living  Ideal 219 


Appendix:  A  Study  of  Immortality  in  Outline     227 
Index 245 


DYNAMIC    IDEALISM. 


INTRODUCTION. 

PSYCHOLOGY,  the  special  science  through 
which  in  this  book  an  entrance  is  to  be 
made  into  the  field  of  philosophy,  has  been 
defined  in  many  ways,  but  the  best  definition, 
or  at  least  the  best  introductory  definition,  runs 
as  follows :  Psychology  is  science  of  the  soul. 

A  science  is  a  classification  of  facts,  or  of 
what  are  supposed  to  be  facts.  It  is  organized 
knowledge.  The  classification  of  facts,  how- 
ever, or  the  organization  of  knowledge,  is  hardly 
aimless.  Science  does  not  by  any  means  end 
with  itself,  is  never  only  for  science's  sake.  Men 
have  often  appeared  to  think  that  science  as  a 
body  of  knowledge  was  its  own  end,  but  obvi- 
ously to  think  so  for  long  is  quite  impossible. 
Science  leads  to  something. 

It  is  accordingly  well  worth  while  to  recognize 
at  the  start  the  end  or  aim  of  science.  Thus,  any 
particular  science  is  a  body  of  knowledge  which 


12  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

defines  —  that  is,  which  relates  and  co-ordi- 
nates —  the  incidents  or  conditions  of  some  pro- 
cess or  activity.  Physics  defines  the  conditions 
of  a  so-called  physical  process,  such  as  heat  or 
light  or  electricity;  biology,  those  of  what  we 
call  organic  growth;  ethics,  those  of  personal 
conduct  in  society:  and  the  process  or  the 
activity,  the  incidents  of  whose  expression  are 
defined  in  a  science,  is  the  end  of  the  science 
itself. 

But  although  in  general  the  end  of  a  science 
is  some  process  or  activity,  an  important  dis- 
tinction has  to  be  made.  Some  sciences  have 
for  their  end  an  activity  which  belongs,  or  seems 
for  a  time  to  belong,  to  a  sphere  quite  apart 
from  the  scientist,  while  others  would  free  the 
activity  of  the  scientist  himself.  The  former 
are  called  objective  or,  in  the  more  general  use 
of  the  term,  physical ;  the  latter,  subjective.  The 
former  seek  an  answer  to  the  question,  How 
does  the  world  about  us  act?  the  latter  to  the 
question,  How  do  we,  and  so  how  can  we,  act? 
Psychology,  most  properly  regarded,  is  the  sub- 
jective science. 

Still,  objective  science  and  subjective  science 
are  related  in  a  way  very  important  to  remark. 
Thus  psychology  cannot  but  be  the  centre  of  all 
science.      The  statement  was  made  above  that 


INTROD  UCTION.  1 3 

the  objective  sciences  were  interested  in  the 
expression  of  activities  that  belonged,  or  for  a 
time  seemed  to  belong,  to  a  sphere  quite  apart 
from  the  scientist ;  but  every  one  must  recognize 
that  the  activities  are  never  really  apart.  Sooner 
or  later  an  objective  science  comes  to  be  applied, 
and  with  the  application  the  scientist  makes  the 
activity,  that  had  seemed  so  apart  from  him,  his 
own.  The  so-called  application  of  science  al- 
ways realizes  an  identity  of  physical  process  and 
personal  activity.  It  shows  man  finding  his  own 
life  in  the  world's  life.  So,  to  repeat,  because 
objective  sciences  are  concerned  with  processes 
or  activities  that  in  point  of  fact  are  not  external 
but  are  destined  in  time  to  belong  to  the  self, 
they  are  themselves  as  to  their  centre  subjective 
or  psychological. 

Another  definition  of  psychology  now  pre- 
sents itself,  —  a  definition  which  in  the  first  place 
recognizes  that  the  natural  aim  of  the  science 
is  an  activity,  and,  in  the  second  place,  makes 
all  the  physical  sciences  also  psychological. 
Instead  of  saying  simply  that  psychology  is  sci- 
ence of  the  soul,  we  have  now  to  say,  Psychol- 
ogy is  science  of  self-expression.  This  definition 
makes  psychology  more  than  mere  abstract 
knowledge,  since  it  gives  to  knowledge  a  real 
motive-power ;  and  it  precludes  any  separation  of 


14  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

the  self  and  the  world,  since  the  expressed  self  is 
always  the  self  identified  in  activity  with  the  world, 
or,  in  a  commoner  phrase,  adjusted  to  the  world. 
But,  again,  psychology  is  the  body  of  knowledge 
that  so  defines  the  conditions  of  the  life  of  the 
self  as  to  liberate  the  self's  activity.  As  has  been 
said,  it  answers  the  question,  How  does  man, 
and  therefore  how  can  man,  express  himself?  It 
is  not,  as  many  have  tried  to  make  it,  a  merely 
ontological  science ;  nor  is  it  a  merely  epis- 
temological  science :  it  is  distinctly  a  biological 
science.  It  is  not  interested  in  the  self  only  as 
being,  in  the  self  as  a  substantially  and  inde- 
pendently existing  soul ;  nor  yet  in  the  self  only 
as  knowing,  in  the  self  as  mere  mind:  it  is 
interested  in  the  self  as  living  and  doing. 
Clearly  the  self  as  doing  both  is  and  knows. 

The  purely  ontological  psychology  has  long 
been  dismissed  from  a  truly  responsible  philos- 
ophy, but  the  epistemological  psychology,  which 
assumes  that  knowledge  or  consciousness  in 
general  is  somehow  a  distinct  and  separate 
state  of  the  self,  and  accordingly  a  state  to  be 
explained  wholly  within  itself,  still  holds  sway 
over  thinkers  of  the  day.  The  former  belonged 
to  a  time  when  theology  was  the  predominating 
interest,  a  world  quite  aloof  from  this  being 
supposed  to  be  both  the  source  and  the   goal 


INTRO  D  UCTION.  1 5 

of  mankind;  and  the  latter,  resulting  from  the 
reaction  that  set  in  so  strongly  toward  the  close 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  has  belonged  to  a 
time  given  over  to  naturalism,  to  rationalism, 
to  knowledge  for  knowledge's  sake,  to  con- 
sciousness as  something  to  be  sought  and  cher- 
ished solely  for  its  own  clearness.  But  a  new 
interest  has  already  asserted  itself  in  our  time, 
an  interest  in  expression  or  fulfilment  instead 
of  in  mere  being  or  in  mere  knowing;  and  in 
obedience  to  this  interest  psychology  has  been 
finally  defined  here,  not  ontologically  as  science 
of  the  soul,  nor  epistemologically  as  science  of 
mind  or  of  the  self's  sentient  or  conscious  life, 
but  biologically  as  science  of  self-expression  or 
self-adjustment.  The  self  as  doing,  as  in  ex- 
pression, be  it  said  once  more,  both  is  and 
knows.  Action  fulfils  soul  and  mind  as  not 
two  but  one. 

It  goes  almost  without  saying  that  the  new 
interest  of  the  present  time  carries  with  it  a  new 
idea  of  the  soul  itself.  Were  one  to  ask  a 
number  of  persons  what  the  soul  or  self  is,  the 
answers  would  be  many.  Some  of  them,  too, 
would  be  very  vague,  as,  for  example,  that  the 
soul  was  life,  or  the  body,  or  God  in  us}  or  unity, 
or  the  absolutely  commonplace.  But  answers 
that  were  clear  and  at  all  definite,  and  that  were 


1 6  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

born  of  any  insight  into  the  spirit  of  the  present 
time,  would  show  a  remarkable  sympathy  with 
that  old-time  thinker  Aristotle.  Aristotle,  also 
living  when  man's  life  had  reached  or  at  least 
was  approaching  a  culminating  period,  a  mo- 
ment of  fulfilment,  regarded  the  soul  as  a  func- 
tion of  something.  For  him,  as  for  us  to-day, 
the  soul  was  the  fulfilment  of  the  world,  the 
perfection  of  the  body.  An  "  entelechy "  he 
called  it.  As  the  pianist  is  the  perfection  of  his 
piano,  having  quite  within  himself  just  the 
nature  that  the  piano  requires  for  the  realization 
of  the  end  to  which  it  is  a  means ;  as  the  me- 
chanic is  the  fulfilment  of  his  peculiar  tools  and 
materials,  being,  so  to  speak,  a  sort  of  walking 
embodiment  of  his  special  environment,  being 
the  very  activity  that  expresses  the  nature  or 
meaning  of  his  environment ;  so,  in  general,  the 
soul  is  the  perfection  or  fulfilment  of  the  world, 
the  self  is  the  entelechy  of  the  body.  Wholly 
in  accord  with  Aristotle  are  such  timely  ac- 
counts of  the  self  as  that  it  is  an  animated  expe- 
rience, a  responsible  agent,  a  defined  but  liberated 
force.  The  pianist  or  the  mechanic  or  the 
philanthropist  is  describable  in  any  one  of 
these  ways.  The  walking-stick  or  the  walking- 
leaf,  in  its  embodiment  and  expression  of  the 
conditions  of  its  life,  conspicuously  illustrates 


INTRO D  UCTION.  I J 

what  modern  thought  finds  in  Aristotle's  idea, 
being  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  soul  of  its 
peculiar  surroundings. 

So  the  soul  or  self  to-day  is  not  some  entity, 
spiritual  in  character  in  the  sense  of  being 
altogether  immaterial,  but  an  intimate  function 
of  the  world  in  which  it  finds  itself.  The  self 
is  both  in  and  of  the  world,  responsible  to  the 
world  and  dependent  upon  it.  Psychology  is 
science  of  the  expression  of  a  self  that  does  but 
show  forth  in  its  acts  the  meaning  of  the  world, 
the  inner  truth  of  the  natural  universe.  In 
short,  the  world's  activity  —  that  is  the  self,  that 
is  the  soul. 

But,  furthermore,  there  is  the  fact  of  con- 
sciousness. The  self  not  only  is,  but  also  is 
conscious.  Indeed,  at  least  for  psychology, 
consciousness  is  the  self's  chief  characteristic, 
although,  as  must  be  kept  in  mind,  not  the 
only  characteristic  or  not  an  isolated  character- 
istic. Consciousness  certainly  does  not  inhere 
in  mind  as  a  separate  part  of  the  self,  but  is 
vitally  incident,  is  essential  in  the  activity  of  the 
self  as  a  whole.  Just  as  in  physical  science  we 
should  not  separate  the  phenomenon  of  friction 
from  that  of  motion,  so  in  psychology  we 
should  not  separate  the  selfs  consciousness 
from  the  self's  activity.     Indeed,  if  one  under- 


1 8  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

stands  friction  for  what  it  really  is,  consciousness 
might  itself  be  styled  a  form  of  friction,  since  it 
is  born  with  the  tension  of  self-expression. 

Recent  science,  whether  as  psychology  or  as 
biology,  has  concluded  that  life  and  conscious- 
ness are  coextensive,  that  where  one  is  the 
other  must  be  also.  This  conclusion  has  been 
reached  with  much  reluctance,  since  the  neces- 
sities of  thought  have  not  been  verified  with 
perfect  satisfaction  to  all  in  the  outer  world ;  but 
it  is  self-evident  that  in  an  outer  world  such  a 
conclusion  never  could  be  verified.  Uncon- 
sciousness is  a  natural  predicate  of  anything 
external.  As  Romanes  has  put  the  matter, 
however,  the  criteria  of  life  and  the  criteria  of 
consciousness  are  identical,  and  they  must  be 
so.  Of  the  two  each  one  must  presuppose  the 
other.  Thus,  in  simple  phrases,  life  can  be 
present  only  where  there  is  capacity  of  a  self- 
interested  response  to  an  outer  stimulus,  that  is, 
only  where  the  stimulus  to  an  action  answers 
to  some  already  developed  motive  or  "  func- 
tional tendency;  "  and  consciousness  is  but  the 
apprehension  of,  or  the  interest  in,  such  a  stimu- 
lus.    Without  consciousness  life  is  impossible. 

The  common  view  that  consciousness  is 
something  added  at  a  certain  time  to  the 
altogether  separate  condition  of  life,  at  the  time, 


INTRODUCTION,  1 9 

say,  of  the  transition  from  plant  to  animal  life, 
may  satisfy  those  who  limit  consciousness  to 
certain  forms  of  experience,  but  it  is  very  far 
from  satisfying  the  reflective  thinkers  who  seek 
the  general  principle  of  life  to  which  the  mere 
fact  of  consciousness  as  such  must  testify.  It 
may  serve  a  short-sighted  classification  to  say 
that  plants  only  live,  while  animals  are  also 
conscious,  but  it  shuts  wholly  from  view  both 
what  life  really  is  and  what  consciousness  really 
is.  Nothing  ever  is  what  any  particular  form,  or 
group  of  forms,  of  its  expression  would  seem  to 
have  it.  And  the  case  in  hand  grows  only  the 
more  difficult  when  the  peculiar  self-conscious- 
ness of  man  is  put  on  trial.  Plants  live,  it  is  said ; 
animals  are  also  conscious,  although  only  pas- 
sively so;  but  men  think,  being  self-conscious, 
actively  conscious,  constructively  and  relation- 
ally  conscious.  Yet  such  distinctions,  while 
not  without  meaning,  can  only  rather  hinder 
than  help  the  understanding.  If  it  is  true  that 
wherever  there  is  life  there  is  consciousness,  it 
is  also  true  that  wherever  there  is  consciousness 
there  is  thought.  What  is  thought  in  its 
simplest  nature  but  the  use  of  consciousness  for 
some  act  of  adjustment?  In  all  life,  however, 
even  in  the  very  lowest,  such  a  use  is  manifest. 
A  passive  consciousness,  a  consciousness  that  is 


20  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

not  seeking  adjustment,  is  a  contradiction  of 
terms  that  can  be  matched  only  by  an  uncon- 
scious life.  Yes,  if  we  will  but  interest  ourselves 
in  principles,  freeing  our  minds  for  a  time  from 
the  notions  of  ordinary  life,  we  can  say  to 
ourselves  with  conviction  that  even  plants  are 
conscious  and  that  the  very  animals  think. 

The  true  thinker  must  of  course  always  pass 
quite  beyond  the  understanding  of  ordinary  life. 
He  cannot  use  terms  as  he  finds  them  used 
about  him.  In  fact,  in  a  very  real  sense  his 
duty  is  to  use  them  differently,  that  is,  more 
deeply  and  more  widely,  with  reference  to  their 
underlying  meanings  instead  of  to  their  obvious 
or  superficial  applications.  "  True,"  he  may, 
for  example,  say  to  his  fellows,  "  you  and  I  are 
conscious,  and  we  are  alive,  and  we  think  withal, 
but  quite  apart  from  our  life  and  our  conscious- 
ness in  themselves  what  are  these  things  that 
we  possess?  What  is  thought?  What  is  con- 
sciousness? What  is  life  itself?"  And  then 
he  gets  an  answer  to  his  questions  which  dis- 
closes the  very  things  into  whose  nature  he  has 
inquired  in  places  where  formerly  he  had  been 
sure  they  were  not.  In  general,  merely  to 
think  is  to  find  the  identity  of  a  thing  and  its 
negative ;  and  this  one  needs  always  to  remem- 
ber when  the  conclusions  of  science  seem  hos- 


INTRO  D  UCTION.  2 1 

tile  to  cherished   preconceptions.     Hostility  is 
itself  no  evidence  of  truth,  but  also   it  is  very 
far  from  being  a  mark  of  error.     A  deep-think- 
ing  science   must   always   shock   one's   settled 
views,  but  so  at  first  must  any  brighter   light 
dazzle   if   it   does   not  wholly  blind   the   eyes. 
New   light   always  begins  by  being   a  greater 
darkness.      The  thinker   himself  finds  his  new 
thought  at  once   true   and  unreal.     So,  again, 
even  plants  are  conscious  and  the  very  animals 
think ;  but  not  for  such  of  us  as  live  the  passive 
thoughtless  life  of  plants  and  animals,  only  for 
those  among  us  who  think  too.     In  pages   to 
follow  the  coextensiveness  and  inseparableness, 
indeed,  the  virtual  identity  of  life  and  conscious- 
ness and  thought,  will  be  an  important  interest. 
Now,  consciousness    is    of  something,  it  has 
an  object ;  and  a  preliminary  view  of  the  object 
of  consciousness  is  desirable.     In  general,  the 
object  is  the  conscious  self's  environment,  being 
that  of  which  the  self  is  the  fulfilment  and  em- 
bodiment.    In  a  very  real  sense  the  object  is 
only  the  self  or  subject  over  again.     In  the  sin- 
gle case  of  man,  whose  objective  environment 
is  the  world  of  the  sensuous  qualities,  —  colors, 
tastes,  smells,  sounds,  and  the  like,  —  the  identity 
of  subject  and  object  is  apparent  enough.    Man 
must  say  of  the  object's  qualities  that  they  are 


22  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

rather  his  states  than  its  peculiar  properties.  In 
them  he  does  but  become  aware  of  himself. 
Even  at  the  moment  when  he  ascribes  them  to 
the  not-self  he  finds  their  identity  with  the  self. 
The  red  rose  a  dozen  feet  away  is  red  and  dis- 
tant to  his  peculiar  eye  and  according  to  his 
effort,  implied  if  not  expressed,  to  reach  it. 
The  quality  of  any  sort  in  his  outer  world  can 
interest  and  stimulate  him  only  if  it  answer  to 
some  motive  that  is  already  his.  In  its  sensu- 
ous quality,  in  its  spatial  character,  even  in  the 
material  nature  whereby  it  has  substantiality,  it 
is  he  or  his,  being  related  to  him  or  of  his  na- 
ture, and  real  only  as  he  is  real,  changing  as  he 
changes,  its  structure  or  order  only  reflecting 
his  organization,  and  its  law  being  only  the 
measure  of  his  power.  We  study  human  his- 
tory in  the  languages  and  institutions  and  monu- 
ments of  all  sorts  that  have  risen  in  the  wake  of 
man's  progress,  but  languages  and  institutions 
and  monuments  are  only  the  peculiar  environ- 
ment, or  object,  of  what  we  know  as  historic 
man.  Psychology  sees  not  a  different  object, 
but  the  same  object  in  its  more  general  charac- 
ters, in  the  characters  which  record  a  deeper 
and  a  longer  history.  The  whole  outer  world, 
as  we  have  it  now  about  us,  in  all  its  wonderful 
nature  and  with  all  its  lawfulness,  has  also  risen 


INTRODUCTION.  2$ 

in  the  wake  of  the  progress  of  man,  or,  let  us 
say,  in  order  to  be  quite  broad  and  inclusive,  in 
the  wake  of  intelligent  life  as  a  whole;  and 
even  as  languages  and  monuments,  as  if  an 
outer  counterpart  or  even  a  M  negative  "  of  his 
nature,  are  but  man  over  again,  so  the  outer 
world,  in  those  most  general  characteristics  to 
which  the  psychologist  looks,  is  man  too. 
What  seems  not-self  is  only  the  reverse  of  self. 

But  this  is  not  all  that  is  to  be  said  of  the 
object  of  consciousness,  even  in  an  introductory 
chapter.  This  alone  would  be  sure  to  be  mis- 
understood. The  object  of  consciousness  carries 
with  it  larger  implications  than  what  has  been 
already  indicated.  Thus  it  is  a  common  experi- 
ence among  us,  when  we  see  or  feel  anything 
without,  when  belief  in  a  reality  in  any  sense 
beyond  or  external  seizes  upon  us,  in  the  first 
place  to  feel  a  more  or  less  definite  responsi- 
bility to  a  more  far-reaching  life  than  our  own, 
and  in  the  second  place  to  get  a  sense  of  com- 
panionship in  that  responsibility  with  other 
living  creatures;  and  this  common  experience 
only  bears  witness  to  a  general  principle. 
Larger  responsibility,  and  that  a  shared  or  a 
social  responsibility,  is  an  essential  implication 
of  objectivity  in  general ;  and  being  this  it  must 
serve  as  a  means  to  further   interpretation  of 


24  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

that  identity  of  self  and  not-self  which  has 
been  referred  to.  The  not-self  will  prove 
to  be  fundamentally  social  in  its  nature,  com- 
prising only  other  aspects  of  the  same  reality 
of  which  the  self  is  but  one.  Even  as  in  human 
history  the  external  or  objective  institutions  of 
human  life  have  always  served  a  social  as  well 
as  a  merely  natural  life,  —  and  the  one  of  these, 
in  fact,  in  the  other,  —  so  the  object  of  man's 
consciousness,  or  of  any  consciousness,  is  more 
than  mere  object,  being  incident  to  and  accord- 
ingly always  indicative  of  a  social  life.  Simply 
this :  There  is  no  not-self  that  does  not  itself 
comprise  other  selves.  The  not-self,  or  object, 
of  the  hand  as  self,  is  the  life  of  the  whole  body ; 
but  for  the  hand  the  life  of  the  whole  body 
is  a  social,  not  a  merely  natural  or  physical 
life  :  and,  similarly,  for  the  individual  man  the 
life  of  the  outer  world  must  be  social.  Ordinary 
historians  and  politicians  hardly  go  so  far  as 
to  recognize  in  matter  or  physical  substance 
a  social  institution,  —  they  reserve  the  term  for 
church  and  state  and  school  and  the  like ;  but 
the  philosopher,  examining  human  experience 
at  its  greatest  depths  and  in  its  most  general 
aspects,  can  see  material  substance  in  no  other 
light.  The  philosopher  finds  in  matter  as  not- 
self  rather    a   principle    or   a   relation   than   a 


INTROD  UCTION.  2  5 

distinct  substance ;  a  pure  principle,  be  it  said 
quite  abstractly,  of  sociality.  So,  again,  —  and 
this  is  a  very  important  point  for  psychology, 
—  not-self  means  other  selves ;  or,  rather,  it 
means  a  system  or  organism  of  selves. 

Psychology  has  far  too  often  neglected  the 
sociality,  the  social  life,  intrinsic  to  the  very 
consciousness  of  an  object.  Psychology  has 
failed  to  see  that  sociality,  not  distinct  substan- 
tiality, is  the  essence  of  objectivity.  To  fail 
in  this  way,  however,  to  neglect  so  important 
an  implication  of  consciousness,  is  to  miss 
almost  the  richest  truth  about  consciousness 
and  its  object.  Psychology,  then,  is  not  natur- 
ally individualistic.  On  the  contrary,  psychol- 
ogy is  naturally  socialistic.  As  hinted  before, 
men  have  recognized,  although,  on  the  whole, 
unreflectively,  that  responsibility  to  nature  was 
social  or  shared.  Again  and  again  it  has  been 
proclaimed  that  man  is  a  part  of  nature,  being 
but  one  expression  among  indefinite  other  re- 
lated expressions  of  her  life.  Psychology,  how- 
ever, greatly  deepens  this  popular  notion,  when 
it  makes  consciousness,  which  is  coextensive 
with  life,  an  essentially  social  phenomenon.  The 
human  organism's  environment,  or  for  that 
matter  any  organism's  environment,  if  not 
always  social  to  the  individual  self  as  a  whole, 


26  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

is  so,  at  some  point  in  the  division,  to  the  self's 
parts.  Thus,  to  put  the  case  somewhat  roughly, 
although  one  man  may  not  always  find  other 
men  in  his  objective  world,  yet  he  will  find 
other  hands  or  legs,  or  other  eyes  or  hearts, 
or  other  living  cells,  or  other  biophores,  or 
other  molecules,  or  at  the  very  least  other 
atoms,  upon  which  to  base  a  social  life.  En- 
vironment is  sometimes  described  as  now  social 
and  now  physical  or  natural,  but  the  distinction 
is  quite  parallel  to  that  between  whole  and  part. 
One's  natural  environment  is  social  to  one's 
parts,  its  natural  character  answering  only  to 
one's  unity  or  wholeness. 

There  is,  furthermore,  another  implication  in 
the  consciousness  of  an  object  than  this  of 
sociality.  Not  only  is  social  life  the  deeper 
truth  of  the  otherness  of  the  not-self,  but  also 
an  individuality  of  self  is  involved  in  it.  With 
this,  too,  the  popular  mind  is  quite  familiar.  It 
is  commonly  recognized  that  an  individual  is, 
quite  of  necessity,  conscious  of  his  outer  world 
in  some  particular  peculiar  way,  although  in  a 
way  always  organically  related  to  the  conscious- 
ness of  others.  No  two  see  any  one  thing  alike ; 
and  yet  no  one  thing  is  exclusively  what  any 
single  individual  finds  it,  nor  again  is  it  the  mere 
sum   of  many  views   of  it,  nor  the  abstracted 


INTRODUCTION.  2/ 

residue  of  the  differences  in  many  views.  Any- 
thing is  what  all  as  individually  related  to  it  and 
to  each  other  find  it.  Thus  the  actual  function 
of  the  object  of  consciousness  would  seem  to 
be  exactly  what  we  know  the  deeper  function  of 
language  to  be.  Language,  we  are  told  very 
often,  is  a  medium  at  once  for  the  expression 
and  for  the  exchange  of  thought;  but  this  does 
not  mean  that  language  ever  brings  or  ever 
should  or  could  bring  a  literal  agreement  between 
those  who  use  it.  Language  has  as  its  natural 
function  the  adjustment  or  organization  of  dif- 
ferences. Those  who  use  it  come  only  to  agree 
to  differ.  What  are  creeds  and  statutes  but 
means  to  the  distinct  organization  of  differing 
individuals?  Certainly  they  are  far  from  effect- 
ing any  real  communalization.  The  object  of 
consciousness,  however,  is  only  the  most  general 
case  of  these,  and  it  has  the  same  differentiating 
function.  Above  it  was  called  a  social  institution, 
and  social  institutions  exist  for  the  preservation 
of  differences,  developing  individuality  and  so- 
ciality together,  not  the  latter  at  the  expense  of 
the  former.  Were  the  institution  a  separate, 
external,  independent  thing,  were  it  in  the  most 
general  instance  a  distinct  self-existing  substance, 
the  case  might  be  very  different;  but  being 
nothing   more  nor  less   than  a  principle  or  a 


28  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

relation,  it  mediates  differences  or  organizes 
individuals  in  the  way  suggested.  Environment, 
still  another  name  for  whatever  is  essential  in 
language  or  in  the  object  or  in  the  institution, 
is  no  external  medium  of  a  social  life,  but  is 
itself  an  actual  social  life  directly  related  to 
whatever  it  is  said  to  "  environ." 

To  put  the  same  truth  in  still  another  way,  if 
all  were  conscious  of  an  object  on  literally  the 
same  terms,  then  the  object  itself  could  have 
reality,  or  objectivity,  to  none.  It  could  be  real 
to  any  one,  for  example,  only  if  other  forms  of 
life  than  that  which  he  was  peculiarly  were  also 
related  to  it  in  ways  individually  peculiar  to 
them.  Consciousness,  then,  is  essentially  and 
fundamentally  commercial;  or,  in  the  short 
sum,  objectivity  means  not  only  sociality  but 
also  real  individuality,  it  means  that  society  is 
an  organism. 

So,  in  general  review,  the  self,  with  whose 
expression  the  science  of  psychology  is  con- 
cerned, is  conscious  simply  by  virtue  of  its 
being  alive,  and  it  is  rational  in  that  it  is  con- 
scious; and  the  object  of  its  consciousness  is  not 
something  separate  and  external,  but  a  vital 
incident  of  a  social  life,  involving  in  its  very 
being  a  larger  social  responsibility  for  the  self 
and  at  the  same  time  an  actual  individuality. 


INTRODUCTION.  29 

If  this  seems  mere  assertion  here,  in  spite  of 
what  has  been  said  in  the  pages  now  passed, 
there  is  still  a  chance  of  a  satisfactory  demon- 
stration in  the  more  analytical  chapters  that  are 
to  follow. 

But  before  leaving  this  Introduction  the  other 
view  of  objectivity  should  be  considered,  at  least 
briefly,  since  it  affords  a  method  of  procedure, 
or  a  general  scheme  for  the  division  of  this 
book.  Thus,  among  many  thinkers  the  objective 
has  been  taken  as  that  which  exists  in  the  strict- 
est sense  of  the  word  apart  from  the  self,  or 
exists,  in  other  words,  independently  or  in  and 
of  itself;  and  under  this  general  view,  directly 
opposed  to  what  has  been  observed  here,  things 
and  ideas  and  acts  have  all  been  said  to  be 
objective,  but  in  as  many  different  ways.  In 
what  sense  things,  such  as  trees,  stars,  books, 
men,  stones,  are  regarded  as  objective  can  be 
quickly  seen.  They  are  spatially  objective, 
being  separable  from  the  conscious  self  and 
from  each  other  by  measurable  distances.  The 
objectivity  of  things  is,  then,  spatial  or  physical. 
Ideas,  however,  are  said  to  be  objective  in  a 
different  way.  They  may  be  independent  of 
any  individual  consciousness,  they  may  exist 
apart,  but  the  predicates  of  space  have  appar- 
ently no  literal  connection  with  them.     They 


30  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

are  objective  in  so  far  as  convincing,  in  so  far 
as  they  are  necessities  of  thinking.  The  ideas 
that  one  accepts  as  true  in  spite  of  oneself  are 
objective.  Mathematical  axioms  are  usually 
given  in  illustration  of  such  ideas,  and  some- 
times the  moral  law  and  religious  beliefs.  And 
finally,  as  for  acts,  these  are  objective  in  so  far 
as  done  by  a  force  or  agency,  sometimes  said  to 
be  spiritual,  sometimes  altogether  physical,  that 
is  wholly  distinct  from  the  self  to  whom  they 
seem  to  attach.  Usually  we  hear  of  the  objec- 
tivity or  reality  of  things,  the  truth  of  ideas,  and 
the  worth  or  morality  of  acts ;  but,  terms  aside, 
just  as  the  real  thing  has  been  thought  to  de- 
pend on  isolation  or  independent  existence  and 
the  true  idea  on  a  sort  of  intellectual  externalism 
or  determinism,  so  the  moral  or  worthy  act  has 
been  regarded  as  contingent  upon  a  power  be- 
yond the  self.  An  act  has  been  bad  either 
because  the  devil  did  it  or  at  least  because 
some  other  than  the  true  self  did  it;  and,  if 
good,  one's  act  has  been  taken  as  giving  evi- 
dence of  a  separate  nature,  divine,  all-powerful, 
infinitely  perfect,  working  its  way,  asserting  its 
will  in  the  life  of  wholly  dependent  man.  But 
objectivity  on  this  basis,  whether  as  reality  or 
as  truth  or  as  worth,  carries  with  it  as  its  neces- 
sary consequents  an  isolated  selfhood,  a  wholly 


IN  TROD  UCTION.  3 1 

alien  environment,  and  a  strictly  communalistic 
society.  Still,  as  if  in  spite  of  these  conse- 
quents, it  has  been  and  is  now  much  believed 
in.  At  least  the  unreflective  consciousness 
seems  to  believe  in  it. 

The  following  questions,  accordingly,  as  differ- 
ent ways  of  pursuing  a  further  inquiry  into 
the  nature  of  the  objective,  will  not  seem  un- 
timely: What  is  the  world  of  things?  What 
are  ideas?  And  what  are  acts?  Old  ques- 
tions, it  is  true, — very  old  questions;  but,  after 
all,  their  antiquity  only  makes  them  new. 
Answers  to  them,  moreover,  will  be  the  bur- 
den of  this  book ;  Part  I.  being  given  to  "  The 
World  of  Things,"  Part  II.  to  "  The  World  of 
Ideas,"  and  Part  III.  to  "  The  World  of  Acts." 
The  hope  will  be  throughout  to  interpret  the 
views  of  ordinary  life  without  losing  anything 
important  to  life  itself.  Perhaps  the  worth  of 
life  will  be  enhanced  by  the  conception  of  the 
objective,  already  outlined  here,  which,  instead 
of  teaching  isolation  of  subject  and  object,  finds 
them  vitally  related,  organically  one. 


#at*  i. 

THE  WORLD   OF   THINGS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PART  AND  WHOLE. 

DEEP  truths  are  born  of  simple  thoughts. 
The  simplest  thought  that  one  can  have 
of  the  world  is  that  it  is  a  whole  made  up  of 
parts.  The  world  as  a  composition  of  parts 
is  the  world  of  things.  Chemists,  physicists, 
botanists,  geologists,  astronomers,  biologists, 
money-changers,  rulers,  or  the  most  ordinary 
laborers  all  find  the  world  a  composition  of 
things,  —  of  atoms,  perhaps,  or  heavenly  bodies, 
or  more  ordinary  things. 

But  in  so  simple  a  fact  as  composition,  the 
philosopher  finds  much  more  than  the  mere 
aggregation  that  appears  to  the  casual  observer. 
True,  the  term  thing  is  a  very  general  term; 
and  when  we  speak  of  the  world  of  things,  we 
seem  to  say  nothing  or  almost  nothing  about 
it.  Thing  is  only  one  of  the  names  for  the 
commonplace ;  but  God  and  I  are  others.  As 
regards  the  term  thing,  one  is  at  first  disposed 
to  agree  with  the  logicians,  who  find  the  mean- 
ing or  intension  of  a  term  changing  inversely 


36  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

as  its  application  or  extension.  Thing,  then, 
being  applicable  to  everything,  means  in  itself 
nothing.  And  yet,  when  one  takes  second 
thought,  the  thing  appears  as  one  of  the  mira- 
cles of  the  world.  It  is,  forsooth,  nothing  more 
nor  less  than  the  miracle  of  individuality. 
The  commonplace,  however,  is  always  miracu- 
lous. So  in  the  world  of  things  we  have  the 
wonderful  world  of  individuals.  The  logician's 
rule  is  reversed,  extension  really  deepening 
meaning.  What  all  things  are  lies  close  to  the 
heart  of  the  universe.  Individuality  is  certainly 
a  very  deep  characteristic. 

The  individuality  of  everything  involves  the 
impossibility  of  any  classification  of  things,  as 
classification  is  commonly  understood.  Indi- 
viduality requires  that  no  two  things  be  alike ; 
and  if  no  two  are  alike,  then  grouping  any 
two  tinder  some  one  head  can  be  possible 
only  through  neglect  of  certain  differences,  only 
through  an  identification  of  unlikes.  But  are 
no  two  things  alike?  If  they  were,  they  could 
not  be  known  as  two.  The  mere  enumera- 
tion of  them  very  definitely  differentiates  them. 
Classification  must  of  course  be  of  a  number, 
of  two  or  more ;  and  sense  of  number,  however 
vague,  depends  on  sense  of  difference.  It  is 
almost   an  old   saw  to  philosophy,  that   com- 


PART  AND    WHOLE.  37 

parisons  are  always  between  unlikes,  and  con- 
trasts between  likes ;  and  the  truth  in  it  is  just 
that  now  under  discussion.  Classification  or 
enumeration  is  necessarily  of  unlikes.  What- 
ever unity  exists  among  things  cannot  be  inde- 
pendent of  their  differences. 

Number  may  have  been  taught  in  the  schools 
again  and  again  as  if  it  were  naturally  applicable 
to  things  or  units  all  alike,  but  the  teaching  was 
wrong.  Thus,  ten  silver  dollars  are  all  different, 
for  the  simple  reason  that  somebody  has  found 
them  ten ;  just  as  the  ten  "  equal "  parts  of  a 
line,  or  the  ten  "  equal"  sectors  of  a  circle,  are 
all  different.  Enumeration  or  classification  does 
two  things :  it  makes  the  many  one,  and  it  gives 
a  special  individual  place  and  character  to  every 
single  member  of  its  whole.  But  this  is  not 
the  sort  of  classification  usually  recognized  and 
talked  about.  In  truth,  a  line  of  ten  parts 
would  not  be  a  line  if  the  parts  were  ten,  as 
most  of  us  have  been  taught  to  understand 
number.  It  might  be  any  undetermined  group 
of  ten  unit-lines,  or  only  one  unit-line  counted 
ten  times  ;  but  it  could  not  be  in  itself  one  line. 
It  might  be  a  lot  of  parts,  but  it  could  not  be  a 
whole.  Any  number  must  be  also  one.  In  the 
matter  of  the  ten  dollars,  the  sum  or  whole, 
the   one,  must   have  a  meaning  to  somebody 


38  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

in  terms  of  some  end.  An  end,  however,  would 
necessarily  give  to  each  part,  to  each  dollar,  its 
own  particular  place,  even  its  own  particular 
role.  A  tenth  dollar  is  qualitatively  different 
from  a  ninth,  and  ten  as  a  whole  is  different  in 
kind  from  nine  as  a  whole. 

But  while  it  is  true  that  things  are  not  to  be 
classified  in  the  ordinary  way  on  account  of 
their  differences,  may  they  not,  do  they  not, 
have  certain  common  qualities  through  which 
a  grouping  of  them  is  possible?  Thus,  red 
things  would  form  one  class,  regardless  of  their 
other  characters ;  hard  things,  another ;  men 
as  human,  but  not  animal,  another;  and  so  on. 
Yes,  such  a  grouping  of  things  as  this  is  pos- 
sible, but  unfair  to  the  things  or  to  the  so-called 
common  quality.  It  neglects  something  essen- 
tial in  the  things  themselves.  Different  things 
do  not  even  have  common  qualities.  Qualities 
are  not  marks  of  things  external  to  the  things 
themselves.  Most  surely  a  red  rose  is  not  red 
as  anything  else  is  red.  The  redness  of  a  rose 
is  peculiar,  because  the  rose  itself  is  peculiar. 
No  quality  of  anything  can  be  independent  of 
any  of  all  its  other  qualities;  and  to  assume 
an  independence  is  to  make  the  quality  an  alto- 
gether external  mark,  and  then  not  a  quality. 

So,  as  the  term  is  generally  used,  classification 


PART  AND    WHOLE.  39 

of  things  is  impossible.  Isolation,  however,  is 
as  unfair  or  as  artificial  as  classification.  As 
things  absolutely  alike  could  not  be  known  as 
many,  so  things  absolutely  different  could  not 
be  known  as  different  Recognized  difference 
is  in  itself  evidence  of  some  unity.  Things 
seen  to  be  different  cannot  but  belong  to  the 
same  whole,  being  means  to  one  and  the  same 
end.  Classification  may  identify  unlikes,  but 
with  equal  certainty  separation  isolates  likes. 

Many  doctrines  in  science,  some  even  of  com- 
paratively recent  date,  as  well  as  many  notions 
in  every-day  life  and  many  institutions  of  society, 
have  asserted  or  assumed  the  possibility  of  an 
identifying  classification  or  of  its  counterpart,  an 
isolating  separation.  The  mediaeval  doctrine 
of  the  genus,  the  doctrine  of  the  immutability 
of  species  or  persistence  or  disappearance  of 
types,  the  Deductive  Logic,  the  doctrine  of  in- 
heritance of  acquired  traits,  the  nativistic  or  in- 
tuitional theories  of  morals  and  religion,  all  the 
monarchical  institutions  of  society,  all  systems 
of  caste,  are  distinctly  hostile  to  any  real  indi- 
viduality, since  they  assume  that  individuals  can 
be  either  herded  under  some  common  arbitrary 
head  or  excluded  absolutely.  All  of  them  re- 
duce the  class  to  a  mere  composition  of  individ- 
uals united  by  no  inner  nature  of  their  own,  but 


40  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

by  some  external  principle.  All  commit  the 
sin  of  identifying  unlikes  or  separating  likes,  or 
both.  Natural  enough  has  been  the  claim  of 
monarchs  to  authority  by  divine  right ;  and  the 
reference  of  concepts  or  class-ideas  to  another 
world  has  been  natural  too,  since  the  source  of 
unity  has  been  thought  quite  external  to  the 
things  unified. 

The  simple  truth  is  that  composition  involves 
an  intrinsic  unity  of  the  component  parts.  In 
short,  parts  are  more  than  mere  component 
parts ;  they  are  related  parts,  being  related  to 
each  other  with  reference  to  some  end  to  which 
all  are  means.  As  was  said  above,  merely  to 
count  them,  to  know  them  as  many,  is  to  relate 
them.  Not  a  mere  composition  of  parts,  then,  but 
a  system  of  relations,  each  thing  being  a  relation, 
is  what  the  deeper  regard  of  the  world  of  things 
reveals.  Things  are  not  component  parts  united 
through  some  external  unity,  but  a  system  of  rela- 
tions with  a  unity  quite  its  own.  A  chair,  for  ex- 
ample, is  a  system  of  relations  ;  so  is  a  man ;  and 
so  the  earth  as  a  whole  on  which  we  live  or  to 
which  we  in  turn  are  related.  Moreover,  each  one 
of  these  illustrating  systems  is  itself  a  particular 
relation  within  a  larger  system.  Any  part  of 
the  universe  is  at  once  a  relation  itself  within  a 
larger  whole  and  a  system  of  relations  within 


PART  AND    WHOLE.  4 1 

itself  as  a  whole.  Any  thing  is  both  a  part  and 
a  whole.  Thus  a  foot  is  itself  composed  of 
inches  in  a  certain  relational  system  and  is  a 
relational  part  of  some  larger  length,  a  yard  or 
rod  or  mile. 

It  may  be  unusual  to  some  to  think  of  the 
world  of  many  things  as  a  system  of  relations, 
but  however  unusual  it  cannot  be  without  real 
significance  almost  from  the  start.  Certainly 
no  thing  ever  means  anything,  ever  has  any 
reality,  except  as  it  is  related  to  other  things. 
The  very  essence  of  meaning,  indeed  the  primary 
test  of  reality,  is  relationship.  A  thing  is  real 
in  proportion  to  the  measure  of  the  universe 
that  is  discoverable  in  it.  Multiplicity  of  rela- 
tions is  what  makes  for  substantiality. 

Says  some  one  here,  and  very  appropriately : 
"  There  is  a  wide  difference  between  saying  that 
things  are  relations  and  that  things  are  related. 
Were  they  only  relations,  there  could  be  no  real 
things,  no  terms  of  relation,  only  pure  formal 
relationship.  A  world  of  mere  relations  must 
be  impossible,  since  there  must  be  things,  defi- 
nite, real,  substantial,  among  which  the  formal 
relationship  prevails.  There  must  be  cousins  as 
well  as  cousinship,  legs  and  arms  as  well  as  the 
angles  and  other  relations  that  enter  into  the 
determination  of  a  chair,  coins  and  commodities 


42  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

as  well  as  prices."  But  relationship  is  other 
than  the  mere  formal  external  condition  that  the 
objector  here  has  in  mind.  Relationship  is  not 
formal,  but  dynamic.  It  is,  quite  in  and  of 
itself,  substantial.  It  cannot  be  both  real  and 
formal. 

To  make  the  distinction  between  formal  and 
actual  or  dynamic  relationship  quite  clear  is  not 
at  all  easy.  In  the  first  place,  however,  it  may 
at  once  be  admitted  that  the  existence  of  sepa- 
rate substantial  things  would  be  a  necessary 
supposition  if  an  only  formal  relationship  pre- 
vailed. There  would,  then,  be  two  distinct 
spheres  or  worlds,  one  of  things  and  another  of 
relationships.  Imagine,  for  example,  a  dualism 
of  cousins  and  cousinship  !  But  relationship  as 
actual  does  away  with  any  dualism.  Yet  what 
does  actuality  mean  here?  How  can  relation- 
ship really  be  substantial? 

Consider  a  very  practical  question.  Do  we 
make  a  chair  out  of  things  or  things  out  of  a 
chair?  Suppose  some  one  answers  that  we 
make  it  out  of  things,  out  of  legs  and  arms  and 
rounds  and  seat  and  back  and  glue  and  so  on. 
Then  arises  a  very  serious  difficulty,  since  the 
things  are  not  legs  nor  arms  nor  rounds  nor 
glue  until  made  so  by  the  chair.  The  whole, 
accordingly,  makes  its  parts ;   and  the   answer 


PART  AND    WHOLE.  43 

given  above  is  turned  against  itself.  Parts  and 
whole  are  not  two  separate  realities;  they  are 
one  and  the  same  reality.  The  parts  are  rela- 
tions ;  the  whole  is  a  system  of  relations ;  and 
each  involves  the  other  in  itself.  Relationship 
makes  both  the  chair  and  its  members.  So  con- 
ceived, however,  relationship  is  essential  in 
things ;  it  is  the  things  themselves,  not  a  formal 
condition  of  them  ;  it  is  substantial.  The  chair, 
then,  makes  its  parts  quite  as  truly  as  the  parts 
make  the  chair;  and  the  chair,  be  it  added, 
is  really  no  chair  until  through  active  use  it  is 
related  to  things  beyond  itself.  Use  or  activ- 
ity relates,  and  so  in  use  or  activity  lies  that 
which  makes  relationship  actual.  Things,  how- 
ever, always  are  in  some  use. 

Again,  imagine  a  river,  a  boat,  a  pair  of  oars, 
and  an  oarsman,  and  consider  how  until  the 
activity  to  which  they  are  means  is  expressed 
only  the  most  formal  relationship  prevails 
among  them  and  they  have  themselves  only 
a  quasi  reality.  The  activity,  however,  which 
fulfils  the  end  to  which  they  are  all  means,  makes 
their  relationship  real.  Relationship,  indeed, — 
and  this  is  the  important  fact,  —  means  activity. 
The  two,  relationship  and  activity,  are  one. 

So  not  things  exist  and  are  related,  as  two 
distinct  facts,  but  the  existence  or  actuality  of 


44  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

things  is  relationship;  and  the  things  them- 
selves imply  the  very  activity  that  realizes  their 
relational  character.  In  short,  the  world  of 
things  as  relations  is  intrinsically  a  mechanism 
in  action;  and,  more  than  this,  it  is  a  mech- 
anism in  action  from  a  power  or  force  that  is 
involved  in  its  very  nature.  The  world  of 
things  is  a  self-active  mechanism.  This,  how- 
ever, is  anticipating  a  little. 

A  world  of  things  as  relations,  a  system  of 
relations,  is  intelligible,  intrinsically  intelligible. 
Of  course  a  mere  composition  cannot  be  in- 
trinsically intelligible,  being  intelligible  only 
through  a  unity  external  to  itself.  Things  intel- 
ligible in  this  latter  way  may  differ  from  each 
other,  but  only  by  a  difference  so  absolute  as 
to  be  without  meaning,  that  is  to  say,  by  a 
difference  of  complete  exclusion.  Intelligible 
in  the  former  way,  intrinsically  intelligible,  they 
have  differences  that  are  positive  conditions  of 
their  unity.  Oars  and  hands  and  boat  and 
water,  or  a  chair's  legs  and  arms  and  rounds, 
or  a  man's  heart  and  stomach  and  lungs  are 
different,  widely  different,  but  always  in  a  way 
consistent  with  a  unity  quite  within  themselves. 

In  the  case  of  extrinsic  intelligibility,  while 
the  mind  might  be  said  to  have  apprehensions, 
it   could    not   be  said  to   apprehend  things   in 


PART  AND    WHOLE.  45 

themselves;  it  could  apprehend  only  some- 
thing external  to  things  in  themselves ;  but  in 
intrinsic  intelligibility,  which  belongs  to  things 
that  are  not  formally  but  dynamically  or  actu- 
ally related,  mind  is  in  and  of  the  things  appre- 
hended, being  indeed  the  relationship  itself  or, 
since  this  is  dynamic,  the  relating  activity.  In 
short,  in  intrinsic  intelligibility  things  in  them- 
selves can  be  apprehended;  and,  as  a  second 
consequence,  the  intelligible  is  also  intelligent. 

The  dependence  of  intelligibility  upon  rela- 
tionship was  indicated  earlier  in  this  chapter. 
It  is  one  of  the  self-evident  facts  of  life.  As 
said  before,  we  understand  a  thing  only  as  we 
can  find  other  things  involved  in  it.  We  believe 
in  a  thing's  permanence  and  reality  only  as  we 
see  its  dependence  on  other  things.  But  now 
a  still  deeper  implication  of  relationship  is 
present  to  us  ;  namely,  the  intelligence  of  the 
intelligible.  Not  only  are  things  intrinsically 
related,  and  so  intelligible,  but  also  in  them 
and  of  them  exists  a  relating  activity,  which  is 
intelligence  or  mind.  The  self-active  mechanism 
is  inherently  intelligent.  Intelligence  is  but  the 
natural  self-activity  of  a  system  of  actual  relations. 

Of  great  interest  is  it  to  know  how  the  early 
thinkers,  the  ancient  Greeks  for  example,  reached 
the  conclusion  that  mind  or  intelligence  belonged 


46  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

intrinsically  to  the  world.  They  too,  although 
almost  blindly  at  first,  declared  that  in  a  world 
of  relations  mind  was  real.  Thus,  Anaxagoras 
taught  that  the  world  was  composed  of  homoeo- 
meries,  each  one  of  which,  a  sort  of  atom,  con- 
tained at  least  in  some  measure  everything  to  be 
had  in  the  universe.  It  was  as  if  he  had  con- 
ceived the  world  as  an  infinitely  perfect  mixture 
of  all  its  elements,  so  perfect  a  mixture  that  each 
infinitesimal  part  contained  some  portion  of 
every  ingredient  represented  in  the  whole.  A 
perfect  mixture  in  truth !  It  is  no  wonder  that 
expounders  have  frequently  described  Anaxa- 
goras' primitive  world  as  a  hash  ;  for  a  hash  it 
certainly  was,  in  which  each  part  contained  the 
whole.  And  a  world  so  mixed,  so  composed, 
the  great  thinker  asserted,  was  moved  by  mind, 
which  had  power  over  all  things;  it  was  con- 
trolled by  intelligence.  But  his  hash  or  infi- 
nite mixture  is  plainly  only  the  world  of  relations, 
as  he  crudely  saw  it.  Only  a  thing,  or  a  part, 
as  a  relation,  can  be  said  to  contain  the  whole. 
In  a  word,  Anaxagoras  with  his  world  of  homoeo- 
meries  had  all  but  reached  the  conclusion  of  the 
identity  of  relational  character  and  intelligence. 
"  Infinite  mixture  "  is  only  a  physical  way  of  de- 
scribing relational  character;  and  the  homoeo- 
mery  only  a  physical  abstraction  for  the  thing, 


PART  AND   WHOLE.  47 

that  is  to  say,  the  individual  part,  as  a  relation. 
What  crude  thinker  does  not  have  his  disguises  ? 
Anaxagoras  might  have  said  of  a  line,  that  it 
was  made  up  of  hotnoeomeries,  that  is,  of  points 
or  positions,  each  one  of  which  "contained," 
which  is  to  say  impliedy  the  whole;  but  his 
meaning  could  be  nothing  more  nor  less  than 
that  a  line  is  not  a  mere  composition,  but  a  rela- 
tional whole. 

So,  in  summary,  the  deeper  truth  in  the  sim- 
ple fact  of  the  world's  composition  is  the  fact  of 
relationship,  which  makes  the  unity  of  the  world 
consistent  with  the  differentiation  of  its  parts; 
and  because  the  relationship  is  dynamic  instead 
of  formal,  being  even  identical  with  the  world's 
activity  instead  of  a  passive  condition,  the  world 
of  things  is  intelligible,  and,  by  virtue  of  its  in- 
herent intelligibility,  also  intelligent.  Even  once 
more  to  repeat,  things  are  not  mere  relations ; 
they  are  not  merely  related ;  they  are  themselves 
in  so  far  as  real  a  relating  activity,  which  is 
mind.  Mind  is  the  movement  in  things;  it  "  has 
power  over  all  things."  * 

1  In  a  paper  before  the  American  Psychological  Associa- 
tion on  •'  Epistemology  and  Physical  Science  —  a  Fatal  Paral- 
lelism," I  have  indicated  how  Chemistry  and  Physics,  and 
even  Mathematics,  as  well  as  Epistemology,  need  to  recognize 
that  parts  are  not  things  only  formally  related,  but  themselves 
actual  relations.     See  Proceedings  for  1897. 

C 

UN1VERS1T 


CHAPTER  II. 

CHANGE. 

"  I  ^HE  world  of  things  as  a  self-active  mech- 
*  anism  must  be  a  changing  world.  The 
nature  of  change,  however,  is  a  difficult  problem, 
and  in  philosophy  it  has  had  many  and  widely 
divergent  solutions  ;  but  in  general  it  is  evident 
to  any  one  that  the  solution  for  those  who  think 
of  their  world  as  a  system  of  actual  relations  will 
be  very  different  from  what  it  is  for  such  as  see 
only  a  composition  of  separate  or  merely  out- 
wardly united  things. 

The  question  of  change  is  the  question  of 
motion ;  or,  rather,  it  is,  in  the  first  place,  only 
more  general  than  the  special  question  of  travel. 
What  is  it  to  travel?  Does  the  traveller  move 
away  from  one  place  to  another,  each  place  and 
he  himself  remaining  unchanged,  the  change 
consisting  in  a  transition  quite  apart  from  its 
conditions,  or  is  travelling  in  some  way  expres- 
sive of  the  existing  relations  of  different  places 
to  each  other?  Plainly  the  former  would  have 
to  be  the  case,  if  the  world  were  a  composition 


CHANGE.  49 

of  places,  each  place  being  wholly  alien  to  the 
next ;  but  the  latter,  if  the  world  be  a  system 
of  relations.  In  the  former  case  the  traveller 
leaves  wholly  behind  the  place  from  which  he 
goes  —  and  many  people  do  seem  to  travel  on 
this  plan  ;  but  in  the  latter  his  motion  is  rest 
also,  —  that  is,  he  both  goes  to  a  new  place  and 
remains  in  the  old,  or,  as  the  same  thing,  takes 
the  old  with  him,  In  other  words,  at  least  for 
the  Relationism,  to  which  this  book  is  already 
committed,  travel  is  commerce,  not  separa- 
tion ;  it  is  a  staying  at  home  as  well  as  a 
wandering. 

And  now,  secondly,  in  the  world  of  relations 
what  can  be  said  of  motion?  Certainly  not 
that  any  isolated  thing  moves,  nor  yet  that  the 
whole  moves,  but  that  in  motion  the  inner  nature 
of  the  whole  is  expressed,  motion  being  rather 
a  fulfilling  than  a  radically  changing  process. 
All  are  familiar  with  the  idea  of  the  relativity  of 
motion.  The  relativity  of  motion,  however, 
means  simply  that  motion,  like  travel,  is  always 
expressive  of  the  existing  relations  of  the  parts 
of  some  whole. 

When  the  Greeks,  to  whose  early  thinking 

reference  has  been  made  here  already,  reached 

the  notion  of  space  as  made  up  of  points,  which 

are  of  course   dimensionless   parts,  having   no 

4 


50  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

size,  no  distance,  only  position  or  relationship, 
very  properly,  although  without  fully  under- 
standing themselves,  they  inferred  that  in  such 
a  space  motion  must  be  an  illusion.  "  The 
flying  arrow  rests,"  one  of  their  subtle  thinkers 
was  bold  enough  to  proclaim;  and  again: 
"  Achilles,  swift  of  foot,  can  never  overtake  the 
tortoise."  They  very  properly  reached  this 
conclusion  about  motion,  because  in  a  space  of 
related  positions  motion  could  be  only  the  ex- 
pression or  fulfilment  of  the  spatial  relationships, 
being  that  wherein  these  relationships  were 
made  real  or  substantial.  Any  moving  thing, 
for  example,  could  never  be  said  to  have  aban- 
doned its  starting-point,  or  for  that  matter  any 
part  of  its  path,  but  even  in  being  at  its  starting- 
point  or  at  any  other  place  in  its  progress  it 
would  be  also  already  at  its  destination.  Of 
Achilles  one  might  say  paradoxically  that  he 
never  could  or  never  would  overtake  the  tortoise, 
because  from  the  very  beginning  he  had  already 
overtaken  him.  So,  again,  motion  is  the  mani- 
festation, not  of  a  composition  or  aggregation  of 
isolated  positions,  but  the  interaction  or  the 
organization  of  always  related  positions.  Of  so 
large  a  whole  as  the  solar  system,  if  we  speak 
strictly  and  reflectively,  we  can  say  neither  that 
the  whole   system   is   moving   somewhere,   we 


CHANGE.  5 1 

know  not  where,  nor  that  any  part,  say  any 
planet,  moves  in  its  own  peculiar  path,  but  that 
in  all  the  manifold  movements  we  have  fulfilled, 
that  is,  made  real  and  substantial,  the  system 
itself.  In  fine,  whatever  one's  ordinary  con- 
sciousness may  be  disposed  to,  it  is  obvious 
enough  to  second  thought  that  movement  in  a 
path  is  also  rest.  The  movement  of  the  part, 
the  relational  part,  is  the  rest  of  the  whole,  the 
rest  of  the  system. 

And  change,  like  motion  and  travel,  is  also 
always  expressive  of  existing  relationship.  Were 
the  world  composite  in  the  sense  of  being  with- 
out an  intrinsic  unity  in  its  parts,  change  could 
be  possible  only  as  a  series  of  absolute  deaths, 
only  as  a  constant  complete  destruction  and  a 
constant  wholly  novel  creation.  In  a  composite 
world  does  not  the  very  difference  on  which 
change  of  course  depends  have  to  be  a  differ- 
ence that  wholly  alienates?  But,  the  world  be- 
ing relational,  change  is  the  expression  of  the 
relations  of  things,  —  as  said  now  so  often.  Not 
the  whole  as  whole  changes,  nor  does  any  part 
in  and  of  itself  change ;  but  change  is  the  inter- 
action of  the  parts  in  their  expression  of  the 
unchanging  whole.  As  motion  is  rest,  as  travel 
is  also  staying  at  home,  so  change  is  the  ever 
fulfilling  expression  of  what  always  is. 


52  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

And  change  of  this  sort  is  not  merely  possible 
in  a  world  of  actual  relations  ;  it  is  inevitable, 
being  essential  to  the  relational  character  itself 
A  relational  whole  must  be  active  within  itself; 
it  must  be  self-active.  Indeed  its  self-activity 
has  been  anticipated  here,  when  actual  relation- 
ship was  found  to  be  inseparable  from  activity. 
Just  as  a  line  becomes  a  motion,  or  at  least  the 
real  path  of  a  motion,  as  soon  as  its  character 
as  a  system  of  actually  related  positions  instead 
of  a  composition  of  only  formally  related  parts 
is  fully  realized,  so  also  the  world  becomes  a 
sphere  of  activity,  nay,  activity  itself,  so  soon 
as  the  relational  character  is  clearly  appre- 
hended. A  relational  whole  is,  ipso  facto,  self- 
active  ;  it  is,  then,  animate ;  it  is,  to  repeat 
from  above,  intelligent  as  well  as  intelligible; 
in  a  word,  it  is  an  animate  intelligence.  In  the 
world  of  related  things,  or  rather  of  things  as 
relations,  there  is  present  necessarily  the  very 
spontaneity  to  self-expression,  which  as  mani- 
fest in  certain  special  forms  is  called  life.  The 
world  of  change  is  a  living  world. 

Perhaps  this  conclusion  from  premises  so 
simple  and  so  simply  stated  will  seem  sudden 
and  as  absurd  as  sudden.  Somebody  is  sure 
to  insist  that  it  takes  volumes,  not  pages,  to 
prove  life  essential   in  the   universe,  and   that 


CHANGE.  53 

even  after  volumes  the  proof  is  not  always 
convincing.  Well,  that,  may  indeed  be;  but 
length  itself  is  certainly  no  better  foundation 
of  a  proof  than  simplicity,  and  some  may 
fairly  choose  the  latter.  The  conclusion,  then, 
even  after  only  a  short  chapter  or  two,  is  that 
life  and  intelligence  are  one.  The  universe 
lives,  and  all  life  is  intelligent.  All  life  thinks. 
The  universe  thinks. 


CHAPTER   III. 

ORGANISM. 

THE  name  for  such  an  animate  system  of 
relations  as  the  world  of  things  proves 
to  be,  a  name  that  every  thinker  to-day  is  using 
constantly  and  that  is  indeed  a  sort  of  cry  or 
watchword  for  every  great  cause  in  modern 
life,  is  organism.  The  world  of  things  is  an 
organism,  —  a  spontaneously  changing,  living, 
intelligent  organism. 

But  this  is  to  deny  existence  to  the  inorganic, 
since  the  world  of  things  is  all-inclusive.  Many 
there  are,  however,  who  cannot  admit  such  a 
denial  to  their  thinking.  What  can  be  said  to 
them?  Well,  it  certainly  does  deny  positive 
existence  to  the  inorganic  to  find  organic  life 
in  the  world  as  a  whole,  but  it  does  not  deny 
meaning.  Inorganic  is  a  negative  term,  and 
negation  in  general  is  too  easily  misunder- 
stood. As  hinted  in  an  earlier  paragraph,  it  is 
frequently  taken  to  be  evidence  of  another 
order  of  being  than  that  denied,  although  the 
thinker   has  always  to  end  with  the  discovery 


ORGANISM.  55 

of  an  identity  between  a  thing  and  its  negative. 
Only  thinking  brought  Greek  and  Barbarian 
together  into  one  life,  and  Jew  and  Gentile; 
and  in  modern  times  thinking  has  brought  man 
and  not-man,  or  animal,  together.  Thus  man 
and  animal  are  not  now  properly  regarded  as 
two  separate  orders  of  being.  Negation,  then, 
instead  of  being  a  process  of  final  separation, 
is  really  a  way  of  relating  and  uniting.  What 
men  really  mean  by  the  inorganic  —  this  being 
the  case  in  hand  —  is  so  much  of  what  the 
world  contains  as  fails  to  come  up  to  an  idea 
of  the  organic  that  is  determined  by  certain 
discovered  and  at  least  partly  understood  forms. 
Simply  the  inorganic  is  not  organic  as  certain 
recognized  specific  forms  are  organic.  Still, 
even  in  thinking  of  it  at  all,  men  at  once  relate 
it  to  the  organic  that  is  known  to  them,  and 
so  definitely  assert  a  fact  or  a  principle  of 
organism  that  is  deeper  and  broader  than  any 
of  the  already  recognized  organic  forms.  Of 
that  which  they  have  found  to  be  the  lowest 
form  of  organic  life  they  are  forced  again  and 
again  to  say,  as  a  consequence  of  their  own 
thinking  and  of  their  own  experience  too: 
"  After  all,  this  is  only  an  organism;  it  is  not 
the  organism  ;  it  is  not  the  vital  unit.  For  the 
organism  we  must  encroach  still  further  upon 


$6  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

what  has  seemed  till  now  the  inorganic."  The 
bounding  line,  accordingly,  set  by  the  negation 
is  at  best  a  moving  line ;  and  in  view  of  this 
shifting  character  negation  itself  is  seen  to  be 
rather  a  principle  of  organization  than  an  in- 
dication of  any  determined  dualism  between 
such  and  such  established  forms  as  the  organic 
and  such  and  such  other  established  forms  as 
the  inorganic.  Whatever  dualism  exists,  in 
other  words,  is  rather  an  incident  of  organic 
life  itself  than  a  witness  to  an  absolutely  in- 
organic realm  of  being. 

Natural  scientists,  inspired  by  the  idea  of 
evolution,  have  frequently  said  in  so  many  words 
that  life  has  sprung  from  the  lifeless,  but  they 
have  always  subsequently  discovered  that  what 
had  seemed  lifeless  was  really  living.  Experi- 
ments purporting  to  create  life  out  of  the  life- 
less, although  appearing  successful  at  first,  have 
always  been  exposed  and  discredited  in  the  end. 
And  when  we  are  told,  for  example,  that  the 
warm  rays  of  the  sun  striking  down  upon  stag- 
nant pools  are  productive  of  life,  we  are 
thoughtless  indeed  if  we  suppose  this  to  be 
evidence  of  abiogenesis.  The  fact,  so  far  as  it 
is  a  fact,  indicates  not  how  life  is  created,  as  if 
it  had  not  existed  before,  but,  more  precisely 
than  we  had   known  before,  what  an   already 


ORGANISM.  57 

existing  and  an  always  existing  life  really  is. 
No  more  fatal  charge  can  be  brought  against 
such  as  believe  in  an  absolutely  inorganic  world, 
in  the  inorganic  as  a  substance  or  form  of  reality 
quite  by  itself,  than  this  necessity  to  which  they 
are  brought  of  believing  in  a  sudden  coming 
into  being,  or  in  what  to  all  intents  and  purposes 
is  a  miraculous  creation. 

Of  course  life  is  an  effect;  it  must  have  a 
cause.  But  causation  is  not  creation.  A  cause 
is  only  an  essence,  or  a  principle,  or  an  under- 
lying function  or  process,  which  in  its  effect  has 
an  express  fulfilment.  Some  would  have  it,  as 
indicated  above,  that  the  sun  shining  on  the 
stagnant  waters  creates  life.  The  condition  of4 
being  stagnant,  however,  already  is  life,  so  that 
there  is  no  creation ;  and,  in  the  special  terms 
of  these  pages,  causation  finds  its  proper  ex- 
pression in  the  simple  fact  that  relational  char- 
acter, as  if  a  warming  sun,  animates  even  the 
"  inorganic,"  but  only  because  it  is  itself  the  al- 
ready existing  condition  of  the  "  inorganic :'*  Life 
appears  in  nothing  to  which  it  has  not  always 
belonged. 

So,  again,  it  does  deny  distinct  existence  to 
the  inorganic  to  find  the  world  of  things  an  all- 
inclusive,  a  spontaneously  changing,  living,  in- 
telligent organism,  but  it  clearly  does  not  deny 


58  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

meaning.  The  meaning  of  the  inorganic  is 
simply  that  life  is  larger  and  deeper  than  has  yet 
been  realized,  that  the  living  forms  which  have 
been  recognized  are,  after  all,  only  organs  in  an 
including  organic  life.  Put  paradoxically,  the 
meaning  of  the  inorganic  is  nothing  more  nor 
less  than  that  reality  is  essentially  organic. 
Negation,  or  separation,  is  vitally  incident  to 
organism  ;  or,  from  above,  it  is  rather  a  principle 
or  function  of  organization  than  a  witness  to 
anything  like  a  fundamental  dualism. 

And  of  course  parallel  to  the  separation  of 
the  organic  and  the  inorganic  is  that  in  technical 
psychology  of  self  and  not-self,  of  subject  and 
object;  and  all  that  is  true  of  the  separating 
negation  in  the  former  case  is  true  also  of  the 
separating  negation  in  the  latter  case. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

THE  BODY. 

JUST  such  an  animate  system  of  actual  rela- 
tions or  just  such  an  organism  as  the 
whole  world  of  things  proves  to  be  is  exem- 
plified in  any  individual  body.  Perhaps  the 
human  body  affords  the  fullest  exemplification 
of  the  world's  nature,  of  its  relational  charac- 
ter and  animation;  but  in  any  body  whatso- 
ever that  nature  can  be  found.  Doubtless  this 
seems  to  approach  very  near  to  anthropomor- 
phism, but  anthropomorphism  is  not  a  re- 
proach, if  one  does  but  see  the  man,  to  whom 
the  world  is  likened,  in  his  essential  and  world- 
wide, world-deep  characteristics. 

To  enumerate  evidences  that  the  body  is  an 
animate  system  of  relations,  self-active  and 
intelligent,  is  possibly  unnecessary,  but  an  enu- 
meration may  not  be  without  some  interest. 
Thus :  (#)  the  body  is  an  instrument  of  adjust- 
ment ;  (£)  within  certain  limits  the  functions  of 
its  different  parts  are  interchangeable,  or,  other- 
wise put,  it  is  an  instrument  of   adjustment  to 


60  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

itself  as  well  as  to  what  is  without;  (c)  none 
of  its  organs  act  in  isolation,  but  all  as  one 
always;  (d)  its  consciousness  is  subject  to  a 
law  of  relativity ;  and  (/)  its  sensation,  or  con- 
sciousness, is  not  confined  to  any  specific 
organs,  called  organs  of  sense,  but  is  a  func- 
tion of  the  interaction  of  the  parts  of  the 
organism  as  a  whole,  belonging  to  organic  life 
as  such,  not  to  any  specific  forms.  Of  each  of 
these  five  facts,  which  are  only  a  few  of  the 
many  that  might  be  cited  in  evidence  of  the 
body's  intelligence,  a  few  words  may  be  said. 

{a)  That  the  body  is  an  instrument  of  adjust- 
ment, every  one  recognizes.  The  body  is  in- 
deed often  called  a  tool,  a  mechanism,  and  is 
said  to  have  been  given  to  man  as  a  means  to 
his  expression  of  himself  in  the  world.  Its 
different  parts,  too,  notably  the  hands,  are  fre- 
quently and  not  improperly  called  tools.  Still, 
suggestive  as  this  the  mechanicalistic  view  of 
the  body  and  its  parts  is,  it  is  all  too  likely 
to  lead  to  serious  misunderstanding,  and  it  cer- 
tainly does  not  adequately  represent  what  is 
here  intended  by  the  body  as  an  instrument 
of  adjustment.  To  say  the  least,  one  must  get 
well  behind  the  mechanicalistic  theory  before 
fully  understanding  what  adjustment  is.  True, 
in   every  act  expressing  adjustment  a  tool  or 


THE  BODY.  6 1 

mechanism  of  some  sort  is  used ;  but  there  is 
never  any  real  adjustment  effected  unless  the 
used  mechanism  is  capable  of  adapting  itself 
through  appropriate  inner  modifications  to  the 
results  of  the  activity.  The  strictly  mechan- 
icalistic  view  ordinarily  assigns  to  the  body  no 
such  capacity,  and  yet  such  a  capacity  there 
must  be.  The  body  is  a  mechanism,  but  a 
mechanism  that  constantly  adjusts  itself  to  the 
results  of  its  own  activity;  and  such  a  mechan- 
ism is  a  living  organism,  defined  heretofore  as 
a  substantial  system  of  relations  or  an  animate 
intelligence.  Adjustment,  too,  being  quite  de- 
pendent on  the  capacity  of  inner  modifications 
in  the  mechanism  employed,  would  be  alto- 
gether impossible  in  any  universe  save  such 
an  one  as  was  itself  an  organism.  In  such  a 
universe,  since  each  one  of  its  parts,  or  organs, 
by  dint  of  the  relational  character  would  "  con- 
tain the  whole  "  and  would  accordingly  be  in  an 
original  adjustment  to  the  whole,  any  action 
would  always  express  the  whole,  and  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  individual  to  whom  it  was 
referred  would  be  as  much  an  adjustment  to 
self  as  to  anything  without,  as  much  inner  mod- 
ification as  outer  accommodation.  But  mechan- 
icalism  is  committed  necessarily  to  a  dualism 
of  agent  and  mechanism,  for  it  has  to  make 
5 


62  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

activity  nothing  but  outer  accommodation,  the 
active  self  assuming  something  alien  to  its 
nature.  According  to  mechanicalism,  in  other 
words,  the  self  arbitrarily  puts  on,  or  depend- 
ency, helplessly  submits  to,  a  certain  way  of 
life,  instead  of  expressing  its  natural  self  in  a 
life  naturally  its  own.  According  to  the  line 
of  thought,  however,  that  is  followed  here,  such 
a  dualism  is  out  of  the  question,  adjustment 
upon  its  terms  being  quite  without  meaning. 
The  body  is,  then,  an  instrument  of  adjustment 
only  for  acts  of  real  self-expression;  and  for 
the  source  of  agency  we  do  not  have  to  look 
beyond  the  body  itself,  self-activity  as  well  as 
capacity  for  complete  adjustment  being  involved 
in  its  very  organic  or  relational  character. 

(J?)  As  was  said  in  so  many  words,  the  inter- 
changeableness  of  functions  is  only  further 
indication  of  the  real  nature  of  adjustment. 
Thus  it  is  a  phase  of  the  necessary  inner  modi- 
fications. The  term  "  interchangeableness," 
however,  has  to  be  qualified,  since  it  can  by  no 
means  be  taken  literally,  being  justified  only 
in  the  lack  of  a  better.  What  it  really  refers  to 
is  the  well-known  capacity  of  recovery  from 
loss  or  injury  through  the  use  of  another  than 
the  affected  part.  At  times  a  lost  or  injured 
part  is  wholly  restored;  at  times  the  recovery 


THE  BODY.  63 

is  limited  to  substitution ;  but  in  general  it  is 
to  be  observed  that  injury,  or  even  loss,  is  only 
an  extreme  form  of  the  constant  need  of  adjust- 
ment or  self-expression  that  man  and  organic 
life  must  ever  meet  with,  and  also  that  the 
recovery,  like  adjustment  at  any  time  or  under 
any  conditions,  is  possible  only  because  the 
whole,  or  suppose  we  say  the  idea  of  the  whole, 
is  always  active  in  every  part  of  the  injured 
creature.  In  man  recovery  by  restoration  is 
unknown  except  in  cases  of  the  minor  parts  or 
organs,  such  as  the  nails ;  a  lost  arm  is  lost  for 
life.  Man,  accordingly,  has  usually  to  depend 
on  substitution,  as  when  losing  the  eyes  he  has 
to  see  with  ears  and  fingers,  or  when  losing  his 
right  hand  he  has  henceforth  to  hold  his  pen 
and  other  tools  of  his  activity  in  his  left,  the 
substitution  being  possible  only  because  to 
have  acquired  an  activity  is  at  the  same  time  to 
have  trained  other  parts,  not  exactly  to  the  same 
activity,  but  at  least  to  a  moving  sense  of  the 
relations  involved  in  the  same  activity.  Thus 
the  left  hand  is  trained  to  write,  although  in  a 
mirror-script,  even  while  the  other  acquires  the 
direct  activity  of  writing ;  and  between  any  two 
organs  in  the  body  essentially  the  same  sym- 
pathy must  prevail.  But  in  lower  forms  of  life 
than   man   recovery  is   more   likely  to   be   by 


64  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

restoration.  The  lower  the  forms  are,  the  nearer 
are  they  to  being  mere  groups  of  similar  organs 
instead  of  highly  differentiated  organisms ;  and 
restoration,  accordingly,  among  them  is  not 
essentially  different  from  simple  reproduction. 
Again,  however,  among  the  higher  forms  such 
as  man  even  the  lost  as  well  as  the  injured  parts 
are  restored  in  the  offspring.  The  method  of 
recovery,  then,  would  seem  to  depend  on  the 
point  of  view  naturally  taken  in  any  specific 
case ;  and,  not  to  prolong  this  discussion,  it  goes 
almost  without  saying  that  any  one  who  would 
comprehend  what  the  activity  in  organic  life  is 
should  be  able  to  reduce  to  a  single  funda- 
mental process  the  three  chief  forms  of  adjust- 
ment here  referred  to,  —  restoration,  substitution, 
and  reproduction.  Moreover,  in  the  process  of 
reproduction,  if  this  term  may  be  used  for  the 
typical  process,  exactly  such  a  change  must  be 
fulfilled  as  has  been  found  natural  within  an 
animate  system  of  relations.1  Reproduction 
can  be  only  such  a  change  as  is  incident  to 
the  expression,  or  self-being,  of  an  organism. 
To  one's  deeper  thinking  change,  reproduction, 
and  adjusting  activity  are  but  different  names  of 
one  and  the  same  thing. 

(c)  That  none  of  man's  organs  act  in  isola- 

1  See  chap.  ii. 


THE  BODY.  65 

tion  is  one  of  the  things  commonly  recognized 
but  seldom  very  seriously  applied.  The  Whole, 
however,  so  the  familiar  principle  runs,  always 
is  active  in  every  part.  So  true  is  this  that 
scientifically  one  is  forced  to  say  that  walking  is 
not  only  with  the  legs  but  also  with  the  hands, 
or  that  seeing  is  not  only  with  the  eyes  but  also 
with  the  fingers.  Simply,  to  repeat,  any  specific 
activity  is  of  the  whole  in  the  part,  not  of  the 
part  alone.  Not  to  refer  to  other  cases  of  sepa- 
ration, it  has  been  the  habit  of  many  to  insist 
upon  separating  at  least  the  organs  of  con- 
sciousness and  the  organs  of  conduct  or  posi- 
tive overt  activity,  as  if  the  system  of  organs 
for  conduct  and  the  system  of  organs  for  con- 
sciousness were  substantially  distinct ;  but  even 
such  a  separation  is  obviously  not  in  accord 
with  the  true  character  of  organic  life.  Con- 
sciousness, as  has  been  seen  already,  and  as  will 
be  seen  still  more  fully  hereafter,  is  a  function 
essential  in  organic  life  as  such,  not  a  power  of 
certain  isolated  organs.  That  we  see  also  with 
our  legs  and  arms  is  plain  to  any  one  looking 
at  the  ascending  stairs  or  the  lofty  mountain  or 
distant  tree,  or  at  the  distant  object  of  any  kind. 
Distance  appeals  sensuously  to  the  organs  of 
movement  as  well  as  to  those  of  mere  vision. 
Recall,  too,  that  the  violinist  often  becomes 
5 


66  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

hoarse  while  he  plays.  A  recent  author 1  of  an 
interesting  work  on  the  painters  of  Florence 
has  recognized  that  the  eyes  live  not  to  them- 
selves alone,  when  he  makes  the  tactile  values 
of  a  picture  important  to  its  success.  He  finds 
a  picture  more  than  mere  color  and  form ;  he 
finds  it  also  something  to  touch,  something 
which  we  seem  to  touch  even  while  our  eyes 
behold  it;  in  other  words,  which  we  see  not 
only  with  our  eyes  but  also  with  our  fingers. 
He  might,  however,  have  gone  even  farther,  and 
found  values  for  all  the  senses  in  the  experience 
of  any  one,  and  sensation  itself  in  consequence 
a  function  of  the  whole  organism. 

(d)  But  the  psychologist  finds  the  animate 
intelligence  of  the  body  most  clearly  shown  in 
the  Law  of  Relativity,  so-called,  to  which  all 
consciousness  is  subject,  and  according  to  which 
the  meaning  of  any  experience  is  dependent 
on  its  relation  to  all  other  experience  past  and 
present.  Is  the  stone  on  which  you  happen 
to  place  your  hand  hot  or  cold?  Whichever 
it  be,  the  experience  of  your  whole  life  in  each 
and  every  detail,  trivial  or  important,  is  in  its 
quality.  Are  you  given  over  to  certain  tenets, 
religious  or  political?  In  them,  too,  your  own 
individual  life  finds  expression.  With  this  rela- 
1  Mr.  Bernhard  Berenson. 


THE  BODY.  6 J 

tivity  of  all  experience  the  science  of  psychology 
has  long  been  concerned.  Introspection  and 
experimentation  have  been  employed  to  define 
and  interpret  it.  But  the  most  striking  results 
have  been  reached,  naturally  enough,  in  the 
simple  experiences  of  the  different  senses. 
Some  have  even  found  a  law  of  mathematical 
precision.  The  work  and  conclusions  of  We- 
ber and  Fechner  are  well  known.  Weber 
thought  himself  justified  in  asserting  as  the 
Law  of  Relativity  that  the  different  sensations 
of  any  particular  sense  depended  upon  a  cer- 
tain constant  ratio  of  increase  in  the  physical 
stimulation,  and  Fechner  went  so  far  as  to  say 
that  the  sensation  changed  proportionately  to 
the  logarithm  of  the  stimulus.  Weber  and 
others  have  found  special  fixed  ratios  for  dif- 
ferent senses,  —  "  difference  thresholds,"  as  they 
are  styled ;  for  example,  one-thirteenth  for  pas- 
sive and  one-nineteenth  for  active  touch,  ac- 
cording to  one  set  of  experiments;  one-third 
for  visual  sensation;  three-tenths  for  hearing; 
and  so  on.  But  such  accurate  results  have 
to  be  taken  with  several  grains  of  salt,  and  can 
be  said  only  to  show  conclusively  the  general 
principle  of  dependence  or  relationship.  It  is 
enough  to  condemn  them  that  they  really  pre- 
suppose not  only  an  isolated  consciousness,  but 


68  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

also  an  isolation  of  the  several  sense-organs. 
Implicitly,  however,  back  of  their  form  of  state- 
ment, they  conclusively  demonstrate  that  a 
sensation  is  not  a  psychic  atom  or  entity,  un- 
changing and  exclusively  individual,  but  an 
actual  relation.  Mathematical  formulae,  applied 
to  physical  changes,  could  not  be  more  fatal 
to  the  atomist's  standpoint.  In  general,  ideas 
are  not  many,  but  one  always.  The  self  has  at  any 
time,  and  has  had  through  its  whole  life,  but  one 
idea  or  one  sensation,  the  succession  and  varia- 
tion in  its  experiences  being  due  only  to  natural 
relational  differences.  In  so  simple  a  succes- 
sion and  variation  as  offered  by  the  sentence, 
"  Every  man  should  know  his  own  mind,"  the 
words  are  all  different,  but  the  idea  is  one, 
each  different  word  being  only  a  specific  indi- 
vidual expression  of  the  organic  whole;  and 
so  with  any  consciousness  in  the  life  of  the  self. 
Why,  life  as  a  whole  is  only  the  expression  of 
a  long,  highly  complex  sentence,  the  end  of 
which  is  in  the  beginning. 

0)  That  the  body  is  an  animate  intelligence, 
or  that  the  nature  of  consciousness  is  just  that 
assigned  to  it  already,  is  indicated  further  in  the 
virtual  refusal  of  modern  psychology  to  assign 
any  limit  to  the  number  of  the  special  organs  of 
sense.    In  the  first  place,  if  a  limit  were  assigned, 


THE  BODY.  69 

consciousness  would  have  to  be  looked  upon  as 
in  some  way  or  in  some  measure  external  to 
the  essential  nature  of  the  organism,  or  the 
organism  to  be  endowed  with  that  self-con- 
demning dualism  of  organs  of  consciousness 
and  organs  of  mere  action  or  physical  process. 
But  psychology  to-day  finds  the  number  of 
sense-organs  indefinite.  Different  names  are 
used,  and  about  many  of  the  organs  there  is 
much  controversy,  but  agreement  in  setting  no 
limit  to  the  number  is  very  general.  Thus,  in 
addition  to  the  five  senses  of  tradition,  —  those  of 
sight,  sound,  taste,  touch,  and  smell,  —  we  hear 
to-day  of  a  motion-sense,  a  temperature-sense, 
a  special  sense  for  cold,  the  "  cold-spots,"  and 
for  heat,  the  "  heat-spots,"  and  special  senses 
even  for  pain  and  pleasure;  and  the  eye  has 
been  said  to  be  at  least  three  distinct  organs, 
being  made  up  of  one  each  for  the  three  colors, 
blue,  green,  and  red,  and  the  ear  two,  one  for 
music  and  another  for  noise.  So,  secondly, 
whatever  may  be  said  of  the  particular  terms  in 
which  this  multiplication  of  the  organs  of  sense 
is  expressed,  it  must  eventually  have  the  effect 
of  turning  consciousness  into  something  that 
belongs  vitally,  not  formally,  to  the  organism. 
It  must  make  consciousness  more  than  a  mere 
being  aware  of  something  outside  or  external ; 


yo  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

it  must  make  consciousness  inherent  in  the 
self's  expression  of  an  existing  relation  to 
something. 

And  certain  very  direct  conclusions  from  an 
indefinite  multiplication  of  the  conscious  organs 
will  show  its  meaning  still  more  clearly.  Thus, 
(i)  it  makes  any  localization  of  the  self  in  a 
particular  part  of  the  body  altogether  unnatural 
or  unnecessary.  The  self  is  neither  in  this 
selected  part  nor  in  that ;  the  self  is  the  organic 
activity  of  the  whole ;  nowhere,  because  every- 
where ;  not  itself  localized  at  all,  because  always 
expressing  the  relations  of  localized  parts. 
Surely  no  one  would  say  to-day  that  the  func- 
tion of  digestion  is  localized  in  the  stomach,  but 
the  self  is  only  the  central  function  of  all  the 
recognized  specific  functions. 

Then  (2)  consciousness,  being  due  only  to 
the  interaction  of  organic  parts,  being  vital  or 
essential  in  organic  life  itself,  cannot  possibly 
be  of  anything  altogether  external  to  the  con- 
scious subject.  So  long,  it  is  true,  as  one  holds 
to  the  notion  of  a  limited  number  of  organs  of 
consciousness,  one  must  also  hold  that  there  is 
something  outside  to  which  the  self  has  no  re- 
lations or  which  is  in  its  nature  quite  different 
from  that  of  the  self.  The  very  limitation  will 
create  the  dualism.     The  outer  world  may  be 


THE  BODY.  J I 

visible  and  audible  and  tastable  and  tangible 
and  smellable,  but  here  its  positive  relations  to 
the  conscious  self  would  have  to  end.  In  cer- 
tain properties,  of  course  distinctly  physical 
properties,  it  would  be  quite  separate  and  un- 
like,—  in  such  properties,  for  example,  as  its 
space,  its  motion,  and  its  force.  But  when  one 
assigns  no  limit;  when  one  makes  sensation  a 
general  principle,  not  a  character  peculiar  to  a 
few  organs;  when  one  finds  that  the  world  is 
more  than  merely  tangible  and  audible  and 
tastable  and  smellable  and  visible,  being  wholly 
and  thoroughly  able  to  the  organism,  —  then  the 
dualism  completely  disappears,  having  a  foot- 
hold for  itself  neither  in  the  nature  of  the  self 
nor  in  the  outer  world  to  which  the  self  is  so 
completely  related.  The  motion-sense  alone  is 
enough  to  refute  the  dualism  of  mind  and  mat- 
ter, the  psychical  and  the  physical,  since  motion 
has  long  been  set  down  as  the  essentially 
physical  property,  the  so-called  primary  quality 
of  matter.  In  short,  then,  the  not-self,  or  object, 
the  outer  world,  is  essentially  and  thoroughly 
able  to  the  subject ;  and  plainly  this  is  only  an- 
other way  of  saying,  what  has  been  suggested 
before,  that  subject  and  object,  although  dis- 
tinguishable, are  both  naturally  incident  to  an 
organic  life,  of  which  the  subject  alone  is  but  a 


72  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

relational  part,  the  object  being  the  subject's 
otherness,  or  its  negative,  or  the  sphere  wherein 
its  adjustment  to  the  other  relational  parts  is 
realized.  Any  organic  whole  must,  by  virtue  of 
its  active  nature,  offer  to  each  of  its  parts,  or 
organs,  an  object  or  sphere  of  ableness.  For  a 
simple  illustration,  consider  again  the  relation 
of  such  an  organ  as  the  hand  to  the  whole  body. 
Very  much  as  the  hand  might  be  said  to  have 
its  object,  or  not-self,  in  the  other  parts  of  the 
body,  so  any  individual  has  a  consciousness  of 
the  otherness  or  negativity  that  the  very  indi- 
viduality makes  within  the  including  organism. 
But  (3)  the  object  of  consciousness  here 
under  discussion  is,  in  general,  the  medium  of 
the  subject's  expression  of  itself;  and  the  fore- 
going leads  to  the  conclusion  that  this  medium 
is  no  abstract  medium,  external  in  its  nature  to 
the  subject  supposed  to  use  it.  On  the  contrary, 
the  object  as  medium  must  be  altogether  nat- 
ural, or,  let  us  say,  in  remembrance  of  a  para- 
graph or  two  in  the  Introduction,  altogether 
social  to  the  subject,  alive  with  the  life  of  the 
subject,  and  always  adapted  to  its  activity.  Not 
an  abstract  medium,  then,  as  if  a  dead  language, 
to  which  the  self  could  conform  only  mechani- 
cally, or  only  by  taking  upon  itself  an  unnatural 
activity,  but  a  living  mediator,  whose  activity  is 


THE  BODY.  73 

already  the  self's  own.  Even  matter,  so  this 
amounts  to  saying,  is  a  mediator,  not  a  medium. 
Physical  science  has  thought  otherwise ;  and,  to 
touch  upon  what  some  would  refuse  even  to 
mention  in  a  work  of  any  rational  pretensions,  a 
science  that  has  called  itself  "  Christian "  has 
undertaken  to  elevate  man  to  an  irresponsibility 
to  matter  and  its  natural  laws,  —  an  undertaking, 
by  the  way,  which  does  but  show  how  ready 
the  Christian  is  to  draw  conclusions  from 
Physics.  But  matter,  as  here  appears,  is  actu- 
ally able,  or  possible,  to  the  self,  being  nothing 
more  nor  less  than  that  in  which  the  self  lives, 
and  moves,  and  has  its  being.  "  Christian  Sci- 
ence "  might  have  been  so  much  more  useful  in 
the  world,  if  only  it  had  not  been  so  seriously 
misled  by  Physics.  No  alien  life  is  the  life  of 
nature,  of  physical  nature,  but  man's  life  in  its 
deeper  responsibilities;  his  strength  and  hope 
and  immortality.  Man's  very  consciousness  of 
it  is  evidence  of  his  lasting  communion  with  it, 
and  of  its  mediating  worth  to  him. 

"  Gross  materialism  "  charges  somebody,  in 
the  absence  of  any  real  reflection  on  what  has 
now  been  said ;  but  enough  that  it  is  not  ma- 
terialism, or  that  the  implied  idealism  of  the 
assailant  is  undoubtedly  of  a  piece  with  gross 
materialism  itself.     Merely  to  utter  the  charge 


74  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

is  at  once  to  be  guilty,  although  indirectly  and 
unwittingly,  of  the  same  abstraction  and  par- 
tiality of  view.  Then,  too,  in  face  of  the  fact 
that  matter  must  stand  for  some  reality  in 
the  sphere  of  human  experience,  it  would  be 
hard  indeed,  if  not  impossible,  for  any  philoso- 
phy to  avoid  being  in  some  way  materialistic. 
In  these  modern  times  names  have  ceased  to  be 
conclusive  arguments. 

But,  to  resume,  in  the  ways  that  have  been 
mentioned  here  and  discussed  at  some  length, 
the  body  is  intelligent  intrinsically,  as  itself  an 
animate  system  of  relations,  being  one  in  charac- 
ter with  the  world  of  things.  And,  to  emphasize 
perhaps  the  most  important  point  in  the  whole 
chapter,  the  body's  natural  intelligence  involves 
a  living  mediation,  which  is  to  say,  a  social  medi- 
ation between  itself  as  subject  and  the  world 
about  it  as  object.  This  living  mediation,  how- 
ever, or  organic  relationship,  between  subject 
and  object,  is  strikingly  manifest  in  the  nature 
of  space,  which  is  commonly  regarded  a  pecul- 
iar character  of  the  outer  world.  To  the  outer 
world,  accordingly,  to  the  world  in  space,  the 
thought  of  these  pages  must  now  turn. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  OUTER  WORLD. 

IN  philosophical  discourse  the  phrase  "the 
outer  world  "  has  been  almost  as  ambigu- 
ous as  the  term  "  objectivity."  The  two  terms, 
indeed,  "  outer "  and  "  objective,"  have  often 
been  used  synonymously,  so  that  both  of  them 
have  to  be  taken  as  referring  now  to  things  in 
space,  now  to  true  ideas,  and  now  to  adjudged 
or  evaluated  acts.  Here,  however,  by  the  outer 
or  objective  is  meant  only  the  spatially  or  physi- 
cally so,  although  this  special  meaning,  upon 
being  clearly  understood,  will  prove  to  be  not  at 
all  out  of  accord  with  the  other  two,  but  in  what- 
ever is  essential  virtually  identical  with  them. 
Objectivity,  as  has  been  intimated  more  or  less 
definitely  already,  neither  begins  nor  ends  with 
the  sheer  existence  of  things  in  space,  since  these 
are  relations,  not  atoms;  nor  with  the  merely 
true  ideas,  since  mind  is  the  fulfilling  activity  of 
relationship,  not  an  isolated  function  of  the  self. 
Still,  as  said,  in  order  to  discover  the  real  unity 
of  the  three  different  meanings,  one  must  take 


J6  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

the  first,  which  is  the  simplest  or  most  palpable, 
and  search  after  what  is  essential  to  it.  So,  as 
the  leading  question  in  this  place,  What  makes 
the  world  external?  or,  What  is  space? 

That  space  is  something  which  the  self  relies 
upon  and  always  uses  in  relating  itself  to  its 
world,  goes  without  saying;  but,  curiously 
enough,  there  have  been  many  who  have  had 
such  a  purely  formalistic  notion  of  what  the 
relating  act  is  that  they  have  imagined  the 
space  in  which  it  takes  place  to  be  wholly  in- 
dependent of  the  act  itself.  Thus  they  have 
supposed  space  an  empty  but  perfectly  real 
something,  an  actual  form  in  which  the  world 
of  things  finds  itself,  and  man,  or  any  living 
creature,  lives  or  acts.  The  obvious  fact  that 
any  condition  of  being  can  never  be  external  to 
that  which  is,  or  that  any  means  to  an  activity 
cannot  but  be  a  part  of  the  activity,  not  apart 
from  it,  seems  wholly  to  have  escaped  them. 
In  their  theories  of  knowledge  they  have  been 
sometimes  intuitionalists,  sometimes  sensation- 
alists, —  the  former  when  they  have  found  their 
formal  space  a  peculiarity  of  mind,  an  a  priori 
form ;  and  the  latter,  when,  in  recognition  of  the 
other  side  of  the  dualism,  which  is  certainly 
equally  worthy,  they  have  found  it  a  peculiar- 
ity, a  wholly  physical  or  "  primary  "  quality,  of 


THE  OUTER    WORLD. 


77 


matter.  Still,  it  has  not  made  any  difference  at 
all  in  which  direction  they  have  turned,  whether 
in  that  of  intuitionalism  or  in  that  of  sensation- 
alism, since  both  alike,  as  doctrines  of  space,  are 
certainly  not  less  externalistic  or  formalistic 
than  almost  every  one  to-day  knows  them  to 
be  as  doctrines  of  morals  and  theology.  Of 
course  a  few  are  left  who  think  that  the  moral 
law  or  that  God's  nature  is  something  in  which, 
and  merely  in  which,  the  world's  creatures  have 
their  moral  or  religious  life ;  but  in  general 
such  isolation  of  the  worth  of  life  is  satisfying 
at  the  present  time  neither  to  preachers  and 
reformers  nor  to  scientists.  And,  in  regard  to 
space,  whether  one  studies  it  ontologically  or 
psychologically,  —  that  is  to  say,  as  to  its  own 
nature  or  as  to  the  genesis  of  one's  consciousness 
of  it,  —  it  is  found  to  be  very  far  from  a  mere 
form  of  being  or  activity.  Space  is  no  formal 
condition  of  our  life,  but  something  essential  in 
our  life;  no  form  in  which  we  live,  but  some- 
thing that  we  live.  Space,  in  short,  is  a  living 
force;   it  is  dynamic,  not  formal. 

In  the  first  place,  if  viewed  ontologically, 
space  is  a  force,  not  a  form;  for  its  parts  are 
relations,  and  relationship  is  real  only  if 
dynamic.  Again  and  again  human  thought  has 
tried  to  compose  space  out  of  simple  points, 


78  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

but  the  point  refuses  to  be  a  component  part. 
Simply  a  space  composed  of  points  can  have  no 
reality,  since  either  its  parts  will  be  separated 
by  intervals,  or  vacua,  and  then  in  space,  not 
space  itself,  or  will  be  absolutely  contiguous, 
and  then,  however  numerous,  without  magni- 
tude singly  or  collectively.  In  a  space  of  com- 
ponent points,  too,  motion  can  have  no  reality, 
since  it  would  of  necessity  consist  either  in  a 
succession  of  wholly  unconnected  positions  or 
in  a  continued  rest  in  some  one  position.  In  a 
space  of  relations,  however,  motion  is  not  only 
possible  but  necessary,  being  only  the  ever 
actual  fulfilment  of  the  relationship.  Motion 
is  not  in  space,  but  of  it.  Hence  the  essen- 
tially dynamic  character  of  space. 

But,  secondly,  to  most  the  psychological 
evidence  of  the  nature  of  space  is  clearer. 
Psychology  finds  space,  as  it  were,  a  force  which 
man  applies  whenever  he  acts.  Thus,  to  begin 
with  less  technical  considerations,  in  the  nature 
and  history  of  architecture,  which  depends  for 
its  meaning  so  largely  upon  spatial  character- 
istics, the  dynamic  nature  of  space  is  unmistak- 
able. Space  is  so  much  material,  out  of  which 
buildings  are  made,  the  peculiar  curves  and 
angles  determining  the  shapes  into  which  this 
subtle  material  is  formed.     Curves  and  angles, 


THE  OUTER    WORLD.  79 

however,  so  different  for  different  peoples  or 
for  different  times,  are  sure  records  of  life's 
conditions,  be  these  climatic,  geologic,  or  eco- 
nomic; as  so  often  said,  they  are  the  crystal- 
lized life  of  the  people  whose  artists  create 
them.  To  their  great  buildings,  however, 
men  turn  rather  for  inspiration  and  motivation 
than  for  mere  reminiscence.  The  great  work 
of  architecture  is  a  temple  whose  very  curves 
and  angles  speak  to  men  of  the  life  that  they 
are  actually  living.  It  is,  then,  no  mere  place 
of  worship,  but  itself  shares  in  the  life  that 
the  worshipper  would  realize;  no  form  for  life, 
then,  but  alive  itself. 

The  common  units  of  measurement,  further- 
more, are  indications  that  the  measured  space  is 
a  living  force.  Such  units,  for  example,  as  the 
foot,  the  ell,  the  cubit,  the  fathom,  the  span, 
the  pace,  and  the  finger  all  give  what  they 
measure  a  dynamic  character.  Like  them, 
too,  in  principle  are  "a  stone's  throw,"  "shout- 
ing distance,"  "as  far  as  eye  can  reach,"  and 
so  on.  And  a  wayfarer,  in  reply  to  an  inquiry 
as  to  how  far  he  has  come,  says  that  he  has 
come  so  far  that  his  legs  refuse  to  hold  him ; 
or  some  one  says  to  a  farmer,  perhaps  to  an 
advocate  of  free  silver,  "How  large  is  your 
farm  ? "  and  he  gives  answer,  "  Large  enough 


80  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

to  be  mortgaged,  but  not  large  enough  to  feed 
a  family."  Then  it  is  safe  to  say  that  children 
have  to  gauge  their  crying  to  the  distance  of 
the  nurse.  "Nurse  was  a  frightful  scream 
away,"  the  neglected  infant  may  be  imagined 
to  say,  "  and  a  good  deal  of  kicking  too. "  And 
so,  in  general,  space,  or  quantity  in  any  guise, 
is  never  measured  abstractly,  but  always  in  units 
of  a  vital  experience,  in  units  of  work  of  some 
kind.  "All  quite  true  enough,"  some  one  here 
interposes,  "for  primitive  life  and  for  ordinary 
consciousness,  but  hardly  fair  to  the  higher 
mathematics  or  to  exact,  abstractly  accurate 
measurement  in  any  form."  Well,  possibly; 
but  does  not  even  an  exact,  abstract  mathe- 
matics have  some  activity  in  view?  When  is 
measurement,  however  accurate,  without  an  in- 
terest in  the  adjustment  of  some  agent  to  the 
means  and  incidents  of  his  activity  ?  Accuracy 
only  brings  a  greater  freedom ;  it  only  liberates 
a  greater  force.  No  space  is  so  dynamic  as  the 
unerring  mathematician's.  To  put  the  case 
somewhat  figuratively,  or  ideally,  the  course 
that  is  exactly  so  many  standard  feet  in  length 
and  of  exactly  determined  grade  and  curve  is 
the  natural  course  of  the  well-trained  runner, 
swift-footed  and  sure-footed.  Training  and 
accuracy  go  together. 


THE   OUTER    WORLD.  8 1 

How  does  a  child  get  his  consciousness  of 
proportion  and  general  space  relationship?  At 
first,  in  what  seems  a  blind  impulsiveness,  he 
fumbles  both  himself  and  the  things  around 
him;  he  traces  outlines  with  his  fingers;  he 
falls  from  some  one's  lap  or  down  the  stairs;  he 
creeps  in  and  out  and  under;  until,  what  with 
bumps  and  bruises  and  other  bits  of  space- 
wisdom,  he  comes  to  give  their  distinct  and 
relative  values  to  reachable  and  unreachable, 
short  and  long,  right  and  left,  up  and  down, 
near  and  far,  curved  and  straight,  getting  in 
the  end  a  spatially  ordered  world.  The  order 
presented  to  his  consciousness  does  but  reflect 
the  freedom  that  he  has  acquired  to  move 
among  the  ordered  things.  Indeed,  the  order 
and  the  freedom  are  identical,  the  inner  mean- 
ing of  his  objectively  ordered  world  being  his 
own  positive  activity. 

But  technical  psychological  theory,  dealing 
with  the  problem  of  space-perception,  uses 
terms  that  are  applicable  not  merely  to  the 
mind  of  a  particular  race  as  active  in  architec- 
ture, nor  to  the  mind  of  the  measurer  of  size  or 
distance,  nor  to  the  mind,  the  mental  life  of 
the  child  learning  to  reach  and  walk  and  ges- 
ture, but  to  mind  as  such,  to  mind  in  its  most 
general  activity.  Thus,  technical  theory  says 
6 


82  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

something  like  this.  Space  is  the  harmony 
and  realized  mechanical  relationship  in  so 
much  of  the  self's  experience  as  comes  through 
eye,  finger,  and  muscle;  so  to  speak,  it  is  the 
architectural  edifice,  not  of  some  special  peo- 
ple's mind,  but  of  mind  itself,  which  relies  in 
its  work  upon  the  fundamental  conditions  of 
consciousness,  the  experiences  of  the  various 
senses,  and  the  ever-present  organizing  activity 
which  these  experiences  imply.  Space  is  the 
relational  whole  which  constitutes  the  world' s 
ableness  to  an  organic  self  that  sees  and  feels 
and  moves;  or,  to  give  the  psychological  doc- 
trine more  directly  still,  the  perception  of  space 
results  from,  or  consists  in,  the  association  of 
visual,  tactual,  and  muscular  sensations.  Of 
course  this  association  involves  at  least  two 
things:  (i)  mechanical  relationship  among  the 
associated  elements,  that  is,  adjustment  of  all 
the  different  elements  to  some  single  activity 
or  expression  of  the  self,  and  (2)  symbolization 
on  the  part  of  any  element  of  the  meanings  or 
values  of  the  other  elements,  —  on  the  part  of 
the  visual  sensation,  for  example,  of  the  mus- 
cular and  tactual.  A  space,  however,  that  is 
so  related  to  the  self,  or  that  is  perceived  under 
such  conditions,  must  be  at  least  as  much  a 
motive  as  a  form  of  the  self's  activity;  and,  if 


THE  OUTER   WORLD.  83 

a  motive,  then  active  itself.  So,  as  remarked 
above,  space  is  a  force,  which  the  self  applies 
whenever  it  acts;  the  application  of  force  being 
identical  with  the  liberation  of  an  activity 
which  only  fulfils  the  organic  relationship  be- 
tween the  self  that  applies  and  the  force  that 
is  applied. 

Space,  then,  as  a  force  is  not,  and  cannot  be, 
separate  in  its  activity  from  the  self.  The  activity 
of  one  is  the  activity  of  the  other,  else  there 
were  no  dynamic  value  for  the  self  in  space  and 
no  consciousness  of  space  on  the  part  of  the  self. 
Remember  that  the  self  is  in  and  of  the  body, 
which  is  spatial  in  character,  and  as  of  the  body 
is  a  part  of  the  whole  world  in  space.  What 
creature  is  not  a  part  of  its  own  environment? 
Or  what  environment  is  not  a  part  of  some  crea- 
ture's body?  But  part  really  means  relation ; 
and  the  creature,  or  self,  that  is  a  part  of  its  own 
environment,  or  that  has  in  its  environment  a 
part  of  its  own  body,  is  in  its  deeper  nature 
the  actuality,  the  fulfilment  or  perfection,  of  a 
relationship.  Such  fulfilment,  however,  must 
be  in  an  activity  which  identifies  body  and 
environment. 

So,  in  conclusion,  space  being  what  we  have 
found  it,  the  outer  world  cannot  possibly  be  an 
alien  world.     Were  space  the  mere  form  that 


84  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

some  would  still  have  it,  distance  would  have  to 
mean  absolute  isolation,  and  distant  things  would 
have  to  be  independently  substantial ;  the  outer 
world  would  be  also  another  world,  distinct  in 
kind,  as  external  to  the  self  as  the  space  in 
which  it  existed.  But  space  is  a  force,  being 
organically  one  in  its  activity  with  the  activity 
of  the  self;  and  spatial  objectivity,  accordingly, 
must  consist  in  something  else  than  mere  dis- 
tance, depending  rather  upon  the  relating  activ- 
ity, in  which  subject  and  object  are  one  and 
inseparable.  In  short,  the  objectivity  of  the 
outer  world  is  not  distinct  from  that  of  adjudged 
or  evaluated  acts,  but  identical  with  it.  Spatial 
or  physical  objectivity  is  spiritual  also,  or  the 
same  as  worth.  In  a  simple  formula  spatial 
separation  is  only  an  incident,  at  once  a  condi- 
tion and  a  result,  of  organic  activity. 

Biological  speculation  has  reached  this  con- 
clusion, too,  although  in  some  quarters  without 
any  real  appreciation  of  the  identity  of  its 
thought  with  that  of  recent  psychology.  From 
its  long  study  of  the  relation  of  organism  and 
environment,  biology  has  come  to  assert  the 
originality  of  habit  or  adjustment.  Original 
adjustment,  however,  means  (i)  that  there  is 
no  essentially  inorganic  or  alien  environment, 
and  (2)  that  the  existing  dualism  of  organism 


THE   OUTER    WORLD.  85 

and  environment  is  part  and  parcel  of  organic 
life  itself.  For  biology,  then,  environment  can 
no  longer  be  imagined  to  impose  a  strictly 
formal  life  upon  organic  creatures ;  and  one  can 
now  say  of  environment,  as  of  space,  that  it  is 
not  a  form  but  a  force,  not  a  dead  mechanism 
but  a  life.  "  A  living  mediator,"  it  was  called 
in  a  former  chapter ;  and  exactly  this  which  in 
so  many  words  is  said  of  environment  by  the 
biologist  can  be  said  of  space  by  the  psychol- 
ogist. Space,  wherein  the  self  has  relation  to 
an  outer  world,  is  a  living  mediator. 

Benedict  Spinoza  had  his  way  at  least  of  fore- 
shadowing the  doctrine  of  original  adjustment 
or  of  space's  or  environment's  living  mediation. 
His  very  monism  was  of  course  a  promise  of  it; 
but  in  one  or  two  of  his  special  utterances  he 
seems  to  have  been  extremely  happy,  and  no- 
tably when  he  aphoristically  suggested  that  it 
took  a  hammer  to  make  a  hammer.  Here, 
surely,  he  put  the  whole  story  in  a  phrase. 
Thus,  the  hammer  is  an  important  tool  in  civil- 
ized life,  and  has  come  to  be  made  with  wonder- 
ful skill  and  used  with  marvellous  accuracy. 
Its  principle,  however,  is  present  in  all  the  in- 
struments of  man's  activity,  so  that  we  might 
say  that  all  tools  are  hammers,  or  even  that  the 
outer  world  as  a  whole  is  a  hammer.     To  any 


86  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

one  having  regard  for  underlying  principles, 
such  a  generalization  can  give  no  difficulty. 
But,  as  the  wise  Spinoza  said,  it  took  a  hammer 
to  make  a  hammer.  The  outer  world,  then,  the 
world  in  space,  must  be  a  tool,  not  merely  for, 
but  always  and  originally  in,  the  use  of  the  self. 
A  tool  in  use,  however,  is  force ;  a  tool  in  use 
lives. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  TWO-FACED   OBJECT,  OR  LANGUAGE. 

A  SUMMARY   of   the    five   chapters    now 
completed  seems  desirable  here.     It  can, 
however,  be  very  short.     Thus : 

(a)  The  world  of  things  is  a  system  of  rela- 
tions, and  has  its  substantiality  in  its  relational 
character,  the  relations  being  actual  not  formal. 

(b)  As  a  substantial  system  of  relations,  the 
world  is  active  within  itself,  self-active,  animate ; 
and  therefore  intelligent  as  well  as  intelligible. 

(V)  Change,  or  difference,  is  essential  to  rela- 
tional character,  but  always  only  as  fulfilment 
or  substantial  expression.  The  relational  uni- 
verse would  not  be  substantial  without  change. 

(d)  The  animate  intelligence  that  the  world 
is,  in  other  words  the  living  organism,  induces 
by  its  own  activity  a  constant  differentiation 
within  itself,  on  which  rests  the  dualism  of  self 
and  not-self,  or  subject  and  object,  or  organism 
and  environment. 

(e)  This  dualism,  as  between  two  organically 
related  or  organically  acting  factors,  is  shown 


88  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

on  one  side  in  the  intelligence  of  the  body,  and 
on  the  other  in  the  distinctly  dynamic  character 
of  environment,  or  more  narrowly  of  space. 

(/)  The  outer  world  is  a  tool  originally  in 
the  use  of  the  self;  an  always  adaptable  tool, 
then ;   nay,  this  rather,  a  living  mediator. 

And  here  the  first  part  of  our  study  might 
very  well  close,  for  as  regards  principles  noth- 
ing more  is  to  be  added.  But  there  is  left  a 
certain  implication  of  what  has  been  said  that 
should  be  brought  out,  if  for  no  other  reason, 
at  least  to  make  the  coming  transition  to  the 
second  part,  on  "The  World  of  Ideas,"  seem 
less  abrupt.  So  to  this  helpful  implication  let 
us  now  turn. 

The  outer  world,  the  world  in  space,  is  the 
"perceived"  world,  as  psychology  knows  it, 
or  the  "  natural  "  environment,  as  biology  knows 
it;  and  this  world  in  its  unity  and  wholeness, 
and  particularly  in  its  apparent  permanence, 
answers  only  to  the  freedom  of  action  already 
secured  by  the  perceiver  of  it.  Quite  properly 
has  perception  been  identified  with  the  pe- 
ripheral organs,  whose  activities  are  of  a  rela- 
tively permanent  character,  and  mark  at  once 
the  more  habitual  life  of  the  individual  and  the 
accomplished  adjustments  of  society.  The  pre- 
sented  unity  of  the    perceived    object   cannot 


THE    TWO-FACED   OBJECT.  89 

but  reflect  the  organization  that  a  more  or  less 
reflexly  acting  peripheral  system  testifies  to. 
Every  organism,  however,  must  be  itself  a 
singly  acting  system  of  individual  organisms  — 
or  organs  —  and  must  accordingly  act  always 
in  a  tension  between  the  already  existing  and 
persistently  surviving  unity  of  the  component 
parts  and  the  relating  and  realizing  unity  of 
the  organic  whole;  and  its  consciousness,  ac- 
cordingly, incident  to  the  tension,  must  invari- 
ably be  of  two  aspects,  being  perceptual  and 
naturistic  from  the  standpoint  of  the  unity  of 
the  first  sort,  but  conceptual  and  social  from 
the  standpoint  of  that  of  the  second.  This 
important  fact  about  the  organism  and  its  con- 
sciousness has  indeed  been  touched  upon  al- 
ready,1 when  it  was  said  that  the  object  of 
consciousness  was  more  than  mere  object, 
being  incident  to  and  accordingly  always  indi- 
cative of  a  social  life,  and  again 2  in  the  dis- 
tinction that  was  drawn  between  the  natural 
and  the  social  environment.  Now,  however, 
the  sociological  implication  in  the  conscious- 
ness of  an  outer  world  —  that  is  to  say,  in 
perception  —  is  still  more  clearly  defined.  Con- 
ception, however,  which  was  just  now  identified 
with   consciousness,   as    seen   from   the  stand- 

1  See  p.  23  sq.  2  See  p.  26. 


go  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

point  of  the  realizing  unity  of  the  organic 
whole,  has  always  been  regarded,  in  the  first 
place,  as  one  and  the  same  with  individual 
self-consciousness,  and,  in  the  second  place,  as 
having  for  its  object  a  socially  universal  idea. 
So  we  have  here  only  an  interpretation  of  a 
doctrine  of  long  standing. 

But,  to  state  the  case  once  more,  environ- 
ment is  "  natural "  and  perceived,  or  "  outer," 
to  an  individual's  consciousness,  in  so  far  as  its 
relations  to  his  merely  mechanical  activity  are 
concerned.  This  mechanical  activity,  being 
"  reflex "  and  representing  the  acquired  ad- 
justment, naturally  seems  confined,  now  to  this 
special  organ,  now  to  that ;  but  in  reality  it  is 
all  the  more  expressive  of  the  unity  of  the  en- 
tire organism,  because  mechanical,  and  it  is, 
besides,  of  a  positively  social  value,  because  the 
basis  of  the  instinctively  social  life.  Space,  for 
example,  is  the  "  natural "  environment  of  the 
organs  of  motion,  in  which  the  individual  lives 
a  well  co-ordinated  and  relatively  unconscious 
life,  both  within  himself  and  among  his  fellows. 
But  the  mechanical  or  reflex  activity  is  always 
in  tension  with  a  more  central  function,  which 
is  none  other  than  the  fulfilling  and  therefore 
always  change-bringing  organic  life  itself,  and 
without  which  there  would  be  no  consciousness 


THE    TWO-FACED   OBJECT.  9 1 

at  all.  Do  but  recall  that  the  relations  of  an 
individual's  organic  parts  are  not  formal,  but 
actual.  Were  they  formal,  automatism  would 
indeed  prevail ;  but,  being  actual,  they  give  to 
the  individual  a  self-conscious  life  in  addition 
to  the  mechanical  and  a  conscious  social  life  in 
addition  to  the  instinctive,  —  in  short,  a  social 
environment  in  addition  to  the  "  natural."  In 
an  earlier  reference  to  the  outer  world,  whether 
in  its  spatial  or  in  its  material  character,  as  a 
social  institution,  exactly  this  two-faced  nature 
of  environment  was  involved. 

Not  for  a  moment  must  any  one  take  the 
meaning  here  to  be  that  the  social  and  the 
natural  environment  are  literally  distinct.  To 
neither  one  belongs  any  special  or  fixed  set  of 
objects.  Each,  indeed,  is  always  in  possibility 
the  other.  The  two  stand  for  a  relationship,  not 
for  a  mere  classification  in  the  world  of  things. 
Ordinarily  animals  are  natural  to  man,  and  only 
other  men  are  social,  but  sometimes  the  reverse 
is  true;  and  similarly,  in  the  relation  of  any 
higher  form  of  life  to  a  form  below  it,  the  social 
may  turn  natural  or  the  natural  may  turn  social. 
The  difference  is  one  of  organization ;  as  has 
been  said,  it  is  one  of  part  and  whole;  and  to 
understand  it  we  need  only  to  reflect  upon  the 
very  nature  of  organic  life.     Thus,  even  a  second 


92  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

time  in  repetition,  a  living  organism  must  be  a 
singly  acting  system  of  individual  organisms  — 
or  organs  —  or  else,  of  course,  an  individual 
organism  —  or  organ  —  in  a  system ;  and  from 
this  necessity  each  individual  has  a  two-faced 
environment,  and  the  organic  whole  to  any  one 
of  its  parts  is  always  a  hierarchy  of  higher  and 
lower  forms.  In  neither  the  duplicity  of  en- 
vironment, however,  nor  the  order  of  the  hie- 
rarchy is  there  any  irrevocable  fixity  other  than 
that  required  by  organic  life  itself.  Manhood, 
for  example,  not  men,  is  what  makes  environ- 
ment social  to  man,  and  men  higher  than  animals. 
But  now,  finally,  another  name,  also  used 
before  although  without  the  fulness  of  meaning 
that  is  certainly  possible  now,  can  be  given  to 
the  natural  or  perceived  environment,  or  the 
outer  world.  The  outer  world  is  essentially 
linguistic.  It  is  the  language  through  which  all 
the  manifold  forms  in  the  hierarchy  of  organisms 
have  intelligible  communication,  and  are  so  en- 
abled to  lead  at  once  a  single  and  an  indefinitely 
differentiated  life.  In  some  special  aspects  it 
may  seem  to  mediate  only  the  life  of  certain 
special  organic  forms,  as  for  example  in  the 
written  and  spoken  symbols  that  make  human 
society  possible;  but,  so  to  speak,  there  is  a 
hierarchy  of  languages    that  is  parallel  in  its 


THE    TWO-FACED  OBJECT.  93 

relations  and  functions  to  the  hierarchy  of  or- 
ganic groups,  and  the  whole  outer  world  as  such 
has  a  linguistic  value.  Even  objects  that  to 
man's  ordinary  consciousness  are  not  linguistic, 
seeming  nothing  but  mere  objects,  are  so  in 
reality  to  some  phase  of  his  activity. 

Language  is  a  name  that  only  more  fully 
interprets  the  conception  of  the  outer  world  as 
"  a  tool  in  use."  With  the  mediaeval  logicians, 
we  can  see  in  it  a  living  mediation.  But  in  the 
development  of  our  present  study  it  is  the  natu- 
ral bridge  between  the  world  of  things  and  the 
world  of  ideas. 


#at*  II. 

THE   WORLD   OF   IDEAS. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

IDEAS  AS  FORMS. 

IN  the  chapters  just  summarized  the  interest 
has  been  chiefly  in  the  world  of  things,  —  in 
the  world  that  was  said  to  have  "  physical  ob- 
jectivity." But  the  physically  objective  world 
has  been  found  to  be  of  such  a  character  as  to 
be  objective,  not  to  a  self  substantially  apart 
from  it,  as  so  often  supposed,  but  to  a  self 
belonging  to  it  or  organically  involved  in  it.  A 
living  mediator,  we  were  able  to  call  it.  Now, 
however,  our  interest  turns  to  the  world  of 
"  rational  objectivity,"  the  world  of  ideas.  What 
precisely  is  the  rationally  objective? 

Ideas  are  often  looked  upon  as  the  forms, 
or,  to  use  a  sort  of  metaphor,  the  "  heads," 
under  which  things  appear  to  mind.  They  are 
thought  to  be  peculiarly  the  content  of  mind 
or  the  objects  of  mind.  Mind  knows,  so  it  is 
often  said,  not  things  but  ideas,  ideas  being 
quite  different  in  character  from  things,  al- 
though being  at  the  same  time  mind's  way  of 
relating  itself  to  things.     Sensations  as  well  as 


98  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

ideas  of  a  higher  sort,  such  as  conceptions,  are 
really  only  forms  or  heads  or  peculiarly  mental 
objects,  —  that  is  to  say,  according  to  a  widely 
accepted  psychology. 

But  this  prevalent  psychology  is  hardly  con- 
sistent with  conclusions  that  have  been  reached 
here  about  both  mind  and  things.  The  doc- 
trine of  ideas  as  forms  can  obviously  keep 
company  only  with  that  of  things  as  separate, 
merely  component  individuals  and  of  mind  as 
alien  to  body.  Not  under  any  conditions  can 
it  stand  with  things  as  relations  and  mind  as 
the  inherent  relating  activity,  which  is  the  very 
substantiality  of  things.  Of  course,  in  the  very 
fact  that  two  such  doctrines  as  those  of  formal 
ideas  and  of  component  things  can  be  said  to 
belong  together,  mind  is  seen  to  have  been 
made  a  function  of  things,  and  so  to  be  intrin- 
sically related  to  them ;  but  this  is  only  a  logical 
implication  of  the  doctrines  themselves,  not  a 
condition  recognized  by  their  supporters.  And 
as  to  the  inconsistency  with  the  conclusions  of 
these  pages,  that  does  not  of  itself  relieve  us  of 
all  responsibility  to  the  views  in  question,  since 
for  wholly  practical  reasons,  if  for  no  others,  to 
neglect  views  that  are  widely  entertained  is 
always  a  great  mistake;  and,  theoretically, 
intelligent   rejection  is  a   very   important   part 


IDEAS  AS  FORMS.  99 

of  successful  thinking.  In  successful  thinking 
it  seems  as  necessary  to  know  clearly  what  is 
not  as  to  know  what  is.  Here,  then,  before 
considering  the  consistent  doctrine  of  ideas  we 
shall  examine  carefully  the  inconsistent  one. 

Perhaps  it  is  not  yet  clear  what  is  meant  by 
the  idea  as  a  form.  Is  it  not,  however,  clear 
that  ideas,  as  mind's  views  of  isolated  indi- 
viduals, would  have  to  be,  from  the  standpoint 
of  the  individual  things,  abstract,  universal, 
immaterial?  Mind's  recognized  function  is  uni- 
fication, and  the  things  which  ideas  are  sup- 
posed to  unify  are  denied  any  unity  of  their 
own,  under  the  view  before  us.  The  unifying 
idea,  then,  cannot  but  be  wholly  extrinsic  to  the 
unified  things;  and  this  extrinsic  character 
makes  it  "  formal."  Suppose  so  common  a 
term  as  man  were  applicable  to  men  as  unre- 
lated individuals,  society  being  by  nature  a 
mere  aggregate  of  social  atoms ;  then  the  idea 
of  man  expressed  in  the  term  could  mean 
nothing  at  all  beyond  implying  the  existence  of 
a  sort  of  man  in  general,  a  universal  man,  be- 
longing to  an  altogether  different  order  of  being. 
Men  might  belong  to  earth ;  but  the  type,  the 
universal,  in  which  mind  would  have  interest, 
could  belong  only  to  some  unearthly  realm. 
And  so  of  any  term,  if  its  application  be  under 


100  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

the  same  notion  of  what  a  group  is,  one  has  no 
choice  but  to  say  that  so  far  as  indicating  a 
unity  in  the  group  it  is  a  mere  name,  only  so 
much  breath;  and  that  so  far  as  having  any 
reality  of  its  own  it  is  real  in  an  absolutely 
different  sphere.  Simply,  if  things  are  not 
intrinsically  related,  then  ideas  as  mind's  ways 
of  relating  or  unifying  them  must  belong  to  a 
world  quite  their  own;  the  world  of  things 
and  the  world  of  ideas,  or,  more  generally, 
matter  and  mind,  must  be  two  wholly  distinct 
kingdoms  of  reality. 

Furthermore,  if  ideas  have  such  an  alien  ex- 
istence, then  are  they  not  only  formal,  but 
also  interesting  merely  as  so  much  knowledge, 
and  always  expressed  in  a  medium  as  alien 
or  abstract  as  they.  As  formal,  they  are 
rather  that  in  which  things  are  known  than  a 
knowledge  of  things  themselves ;  they  have  no 
meaning  in  recognition  of  individuality;1  and 
they  make  possible  the  sort  of  classification, 
criticised  above,  that  identifies  unlikes  and  sep- 
arates likes.  Formalism  could  hardly  be  better 
defined  than  in  this  way,  —  unity  without  regard 
to  differences,  or  differences  undetermined  by 
unity.     But,  if  formal  or  abstract,  ideas  must  be 

1  Unless  their  formalism  be  seen  as  only  the  other  side  of 
atomism. 


IDEAS  AS  FORMS.  101 

marked  "  For  knowledge  only."  To  have  them 
simply  as  so  much  mental  treasure  can  be  the 
only  true  interest  in  them.  Ever  to  seek  to  ap- 
ply them,  or  fulfil  them  in  the  world  of  things, 
would  be  illogical,  self- contradictory,  since  they 
have  by  nature  no  dealing  with  the  world  of 
things.  They  are  mind's,  and  mind  is  of  an- 
other world,  and  the  knowledge  of  them  must 
have  its  worth  within  itself,  be  for  its  own  sake, 
since  —  without  contradiction  —  it  cannot  be 
said  to  have  any  other  end  or  purpose  whatso- 
ever. Knowledge  wholly  for  knowledge's  sake, 
science  wholly  for  science's  sake,  is  an  ideal,  a 
cry  not  infrequently  heard  at  the  present  time, 
and  it  evidently  presupposes  that  ideas  are 
mere  abstract  forms,  the  content  of  an  alto- 
gether alien  mind. 

Knowing  mere  knowledge,  however,  having 
an  abstract  consciousness  of  ideas,  has  in  human 
life,  particularly  in  education  and  in  training  of 
every  sort,  a  certain  value.  Thus  it  always  in- 
volves an  almost  if  not  quite  exclusive  emphasis 
upon  the  different  media  of  self-expression. 
Suppose  one  were  asked  to  walk  a  walk,  or  talk 
a  talk,  or  look  a  look,  or  in  general  do  a  deed. 
In  walking  a  walk  one  could  not  be  interested 
in  going  anywhere  or  seeking  anything,  only  in 
walking,  that  is,  in  moving  the  legs ;  and,  simi- 


102  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

larly,  in  any  of  the  other  activities  one  could 
live  only  in  the  abstracted,  unrelated  medium 
of  expression.  Elocutionists  ordinarily  do  no 
more  than  talk  talks  or  speak  speeches,  and  out 
in  society  countless  people  are  mere  lookers  of 
looks.  The  value,  in  short,  in  knowing  mere 
knowledge  is  directly  proportional  to  the  need 
of  identifying  the  self  with  the  unmeaning  me- 
dium of  activity.  Knowers  of  mere  knowledge 
do  learn  formulas,  rules,  precepts;  they  are 
masters  of  apt  phrases  and  storehouses  of  quo- 
tations, and  perhaps  even  intellectual  gymnasts ; 
but  they  are  not  thinkers.  Indeed,  whoever 
knows  what  he  knows  and  that  he  knows  is 
always  much  better  as  a  talker  or  writer  than  as 
a  thinker,  and  much  more  acceptable,  too,  to 
his  unreflective  and  readily  marshalled  fellows ; 
but  the  thinker,  greater  than  any  medium  or  any 
uniform,  never  can  be  quite  clear,  even  to  him- 
self. The  thinker  is  one  who  rather  enacts  or 
applies  than  merely  knows  ideas.  In  a  universe, 
however,  of  alien  or  abstract  ideas  —  such  as  the 
sensations  and  the  conceptions  of  the  still  cur- 
rent psychological  theory  —  there  can  be  no 
thinkers,  only  gymnasts. 

Schopenhauer,  writing  more  than  half  a  cen- 
tury ago,  was  unable  to  discover  in  human  life 
any  other  hope  than  that  of  doing  mere  deeds 


IDEAS  AS  FORMS.  103 

and  knowing  mere  knowledge,  and  he  drew  at 
once  the  conclusion  that  the  thinker,  as  if  a 
duck  condemned  to  live  out  of  water,  could 
have  no  more  ideal  act  of  will  than  suicide. 
Whence  or  how  the  unfortunate  duck  came 
upon  the  earth  the  great  pessimist  failed  to  ex- 
plain satisfactorily,  but  his  philosophy  is  on  the 
whole  a  very  profound  comment  upon  abstract 
idealism ;  and  a  very  fair  exemplification  of  both 
his  premises  and  his  conclusions  can  be  seen  to- 
day in  school  and  church  and  state,  where  not 
only  in  a  doctrinal  but  also  in  a  practical  way 
intellectual  suicide  is  the  rule  rather  than  the 
exception. 

The  best  illustration  of  the  abstract  medium, 
in  which  formal  ideas  are  expressed,  is  a  dead 
language.  A  language  is  dead  in  so  far  as  it  is 
the  medium  of  a  strange  or  alien  experience. 
There  are  other  dead  languages  than  Greek, 
Latin,  and  Sanskrit,  and  these  just  named  are  not 
dead  because  Greek,  Latin,  and  Sanskrit.  Any 
language,  any  medium  of  expression,  studied  me- 
chanically, —  that  is,  with  only  a  dictionary  and 
grammar  or  their  equivalents,  —  is  dead ;  for  ex- 
ample, German  and  French,  as  commonly  taught. 
Geometry  and  Physics  are  often  fairly  describ- 
able  as  dead  languages,  for  they  are  not  free 
from  mechanical  methods,  and  their  objects  of 


104  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

interest,  space  and  matter,  are  media  of  expres- 
sion. Both  in  theory  and  in  experiment  even 
psychology  has  treated  matter  as  the  dead  lan- 
guage of  the  sensuous  consciousness.  And,  in 
the  same  wider  use  of  the  term,  gymnasium  ex- 
ercise, or  the  athletic  cult  in  all  its  phases,  so 
prominent  a  part  of  recent  education,  is  a  dead 
language.  Its  being  this,  too,  makes  it  only  a 
perfectly  logical  part  of  a  curriculum  that  in 
general  knows  no  medium  but  the  unmeaning 
medium,  and  no  idea  but  the  abstract,  wholly 
vacant  form  of  an  absolutely  immaterial  mind. 

But  there  is  still  another  important  conse- 
quence of  isolating  things  from  each  other  and 
mind  from  things.  If  ideas  are  formal,  and  so 
for  knowledge  only  and  expressed  in  a  lifeless 
medium,  then  also  will  mind  as  knowing  such 
ideas  require  at  least  two  faculties,  —  the  faculty 
of  thought  and  the  faculty  of  sensation.  Through 
the  former  will  come  the  consciousness  of  the 
ideas  themselves,  through  the  latter  of  the  mere 
medium  expressing  the  ideas ;  and  the  two  will 
be  of  course  as  distinct,  as  different  in  kind,  as 
their  objects.  Moreover,  as  something  belong- 
ing logically  to  the  abstraction  of  mind,  both 
sensation  and  thought,  each  in  its  special  way, 
will  have  to  transcend  its  own  consciousness,  — 
sensation  by  being  conscious  of  an  insensible 


IDEAS  AS  FORMS.  1 05 

matter  that  manifests  itself  extrinsically  in  the 
sensations  or  sensuous  qualities  of  color,  odor, 
and  the  like ;  and  thought  by  being  conscious  of 
ideas  that  manifest  themselves  extrinsically  in 
so-called  perceptions.  In  education  the  dual- 
ism here  indicated  has  been  put  into  practice, 
now  by  exaltation  of  the  "  Deductive  Method," 
which  emphasizes  the  consciousness  of  ideas, 
and  now  in  exaltation  of  the  "  Inductive  Method," 
which  would  emphasize  the  consciousness  of 
things  or  media,  —  now  in  principle-lessons,  now 
in  object-lessons.  Contrary  to  what  seems  to 
be  usually  supposed,  object-lessons,  although 
marking  a  reaction  against  principle-lessons, 
rely  upon  essentially  the  same  character  in 
mind.     Both  are  dualistic. 

And  to  this  dualism  there  is  incident  also  the 
limitation  of  consciousness  to  a  few  special  and 
distinct  organs  in  the  body.  Reference  has 
been  made  to  such  limitation  before.  Ob- 
viously it  depends  upon,  or  itself  has  led  to, 
the  abstraction  or  isolation  of  the  medium  of 
conscious  self-expression.  It  makes  the  mental 
life  a  life  quite  by  itself.  And  if  consciousness 
is  peculiar  to  a  part  of  the  self,  then  its  object, 
in  exact  proportion  to  the  partiality,  will  be 
abstract;  whence  that  need  of  the  second  fac- 
ulty, the  first  apprehending  the  object,  the  sec- 


106  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

ond  that  for  which  the  object  is  an  abstraction. 
The  second  faculty,  moreover,  the  faculty  of 
thought,  is  assigned  a  place  in  the  brain,  so 
that  the  dualism  gets  a  physiological  founda- 
tion in  the  several  organs  of  sense,  on  the  one 
side,  as  the  seat  of  consciousness  of  the  mere 
medium  of  expression,  and  the  brain,  on  the 
other,  as  the  seat  of  the  consciousness  of  the 
mediated   ideas. 

So,  finally,  as  logically  one,  there  are  all 
these  different  views  of  the  world  and  mind's 
relation  to  it:   (i)  things    isolated    or    atomic; 

(2)  ideas  formal,  the  objects  of  an  alien  mind ; 

(3)  consciousness  self-centred,  existing  only  for 
consciousness'  sake;  (4)  media  of  expression 
abstract  or  lifeless;  (5)  the  faculties  of  the 
mind  distinctly  two ;  and  (6)  the  conscious  life 
of  the  organism  confined  to  certain  particular 
organs,  —  sensation  to  the  special  sense-organs 
and  thought  to  the  brain.  These  are  some  of 
the  important  doctrines  belonging  to  abstract 
or  formal  idealism;  and  affording  us,  as  they 
do,  so  many  standpoints,  or  let  us  say  so  many 
points  of  attack,  they  cannot  but  assist  to  the 
understanding  of  our  contentions  here  for  a 
relational  or  organic  universe  and  an  inherent 
mind. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 
HISTORICAL  ILLUSTRATION. 

FORMAL  Idealism  has  had  its  source  in 
conditions  of  the  past.  That  the  past 
persisting  in  the  present  always  makes  for- 
malism, goes  without  saying,  and  that  formalism 
itself  is  real  only  retrospectively,  is  also  clear. 

The  formal  idea  and  the  abstract  medium,  as 
they  are  found  in  the  life  of  to-day,  date  back  to 
the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era,  being  of  a 
distinctly  Christian- Roman  origin.  They  are, 
in  fact,  lineal  descendants  of  the  revealed  or 
infallible  law  and  the  Incarnate  Word.  Accord- 
ing to  the  earlier  Christianity,  and  particularly 
according  to  the  use  that  the  Roman  power 
made  of  the  habit  of  mind  which  Christianity 
defined  and  inculcated,  the  medium  of  man's 
self-expression  was  fixed,  given,  imposed,  abso- 
lute, divine.  Human  life,  in  consequence,  was 
not  here,  but  naturally  in  another  world;  not 
man's  own,  but  God's  or  Rome's.  In  Christ,  in 
the  Roman  emperor,  in  the  written  and  spoken 
language,    in   the   very   coin   of  the  time,    life 


108  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

found  only  an  other-world  mediation.  Roman 
law  and  Christian  dogma  combined  to  effect 
what  may  fairly  be  called  a  separation  of  the 
individual  from  himself,  making  him  live  apart 
in  an  ideal  or  spiritual  somewhere,  called  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven  by  the  Church  and  citizen- 
ship by  the  State ;  and,  living  there,  he  became 
a  very  good  soldier,  indifferent  to  the  changes 
of  the  world  about  him,  even  to  death  itself. 
Of  course,  however,  soldiers  were  the  supreme 
need  of  the  time. 

The  soldier  is  the  very  incarnation  of  Formal 
Idealism.  His  mind  is  not  his  own,  for  he  is 
allowed  only  to  know  knowledge  and  do  deeds. 
His  individual  consciousness  and  his  activity 
are  two  distinct  things,  and  his  body  is  medium, 
not  for  any  deeds  of  his  own,  but  solely  for 
those  of  God's  Kingdom,  of  Church  and  State, 
in  which  he  trustingly  lives,  passive  even  through 
his  greatest  activity. 

In  the  Christian-Roman  militarism,  then,  the 
formal  idea  and  the  abstract  medium  of  to-day 
had  their  rise.  But  our  present  consciousness 
of  them  as  formal  and  abstract  shows  that  our 
times  are  outgrowing  them.  As  the  not-self  is 
the  past  self — witness  the  doctrine  of  evolu- 
tion —  so  the  formal  is  the  outgrown.  Society 
to-day  has  another  conception  of  mediation  than 


HISTORICAL  ILLUSTRATION.  109 

the  Roman  and  early  Christian,  or  at  least  than 
this  as  it  is  seen  by  the  present  time.  Not 
Christ's  life,  but  a  Christian  life,  is  the  burden 
of  the  preaching  in  many  pulpits;  and  the 
change,  which  has  its  parallels  in  social  and 
political  life  as  well  as  in  scientific  theory,  does 
but  mark  the  evolution  of  the  Roman  into 
something  besides  a  soldier. 

Now  to  some,  perhaps  to  many,  religion  and 
its  cherished  history  will  seem  degraded  by  the 
present  declaration  of  a  virtual  identity  between 
the  religious  attitude  towards  the  Word  Incar- 
nate and  the  secular  attitude  towards  all  the 
different  media  of  every-day  life ;  but  to  such 
religion  must  be  a  very  small  thing  indeed. 
Why  not  give  to  religion  its  accruing  tribute? 
Religion  is  the  supreme  education,  as  it  is  also 
the  supreme  government  or  the  supreme  con- 
trol in  general ;  for  more  than  any  other  influ- 
ence it  determines  the  bent  or  habit  of  mind, 
which  manifests  itself  and  has  to  manifest  itself 
in  life  as  a  whole.  Men  live  their  religion 
in  their  every-day  life  very  much  better  than 
is  commonly  supposed.  The  much  preached 
ideal  is  no  more  and  no  less  than  an  existing 
fact,  an  already  realized  condition.  Indeed, 
only  because  already  realized,  has  it  any  value 
as  an  ideal. 


IIO  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

And  psychological  doctrine  does  but  define 
the  self  and  its  mind  in  ways  that  accord  with 
the  determining  influence  of  religion.  Formal 
Idealism,  therefore,  as  a  psychological  theory, 
only  brings  to  light  such  relations  of  man  to 
his  world,  or  more  generally  of  mind  to  matter, 
as  have  been  involved  in  the  soldier's  or  the  sol- 
dier-citizen's life  since  the  opening  of  the  Chris- 
tian era. 

Assuredly  psychology  would  fail  to  be  the 
science  of  self-expression,  if  in  its  history  it 
did  not  reflect  the  history  of  religion. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

IDEAS  NOT   FORMS   BUT  FORCES. 

PERHAPS  the  most  severe  criticism  of  For- 
mal Idealism,  as  defined  in  the  foregoing 
chapters,  is  the  criticism  from  history.  Indeed, 
history  is  both  its  justification  and  its  over- 
throw, since,  as  remarked  before,  it  is  found 
formal  only  retrospectively,  that  is,  only  as 
outgrown.  The  decline  of  supernaturalism,  of 
militarism,  of  absolutism  in  all  its  forms,  in 
short,  of  externalism  or  alien  mediation,  is  his- 
tory's condemning  criticism.  And  that  phi- 
losophy of  Schopenhauer's  is  a  criticism  also. 
One  could  hardly  get  a  better  definition  of 
death  than  the  doing  of  deeds  or  the  conscious- 
ness of  empty  forms.  The  soldier's  natural  goal 
is  death ;  but  history  is  dispensing  with  soldiers 
and  using  individually  responsible  laborers  in- 
stead, and  the  change  is  bringing,  among  other 
things,  a  new  psychology. 

What  this  new  psychology  has  to  think  about 
the  world  of  things  we  have  seen  already. 
Things  are  actually,  substantially  related,  —  re- 


112  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

lated  in  the  way  that  makes  the  whole,  to 
which  they  belong,  a  living  organism.  Also 
we  have  seen,  although  indirectly,  what  ideas 
are.  We  have  seen  what  ideas  are  not.  Now, 
however,  we  would  take  the  direct  view,  and 
ask  ourselves  this  question :  If  things  are  rela- 
tions, what  positively  are  ideas? 

Whatever  else  may  be  said,  ideas  are  states 
of  consciousness,  and  some  of  the  general 
characteristics  of  consciousness,  that  have  been 
touched  upon  before,  should  be  recalled.  Con- 
sciousness was  shown  to  be  essential  to  a  sub- 
stantial system  of  relations,  being  induced  by 
the  inherent  self-activity.  Thus  every  part 
of  such  a  system,  every  part  of  an  organism, 
must  be  subject  to  a  relating  activity,  and 
must  itself  at  the  same  time  contribute  to 
the  activity,  the  subjection  and  the  contri- 
bution being  but  incidents  of  the  self-activity 
by  which  the  organism  as  a  whole  is  realized. 
This  necessity,  however,  carries  with  it  a  tension, 
the  tension  of  adjustment,  since  each  part  seeks 
to  fulfil  an  individual  adjustment  to  the  whole, 
or  the  whole  to  express  its  organic  nature 
in  the  part;  and  such  tension  is  consciousness. 
Consciousness,  then,  is  the  tension  of  individual 
expression,  —  that  is,  of  differentiation  —  that 
organic  life  must  always  induce. 


IDEAS  NOT  FORMS  BUT  FORCES.  113 

But  if  this  be  the  nature  of  consciousness,  it 
follows  at  once  that  the  condition  of  being  con- 
scious cannot  possibly  result  from  any  peculiar 
power  or  property  of  any  individual  organ  in 
an  organism.  The  subjected  and  contributing 
part  is  not  conscious  in  and  of  itself  alone,  as 
the  Formal  Idealist  would  have  it.  On  the 
contrary,  consciousness  is  an  interactive  func- 
tion or  product,  involving  all  parts.  An  organ- 
ism, then,  as  has  been  contended  before,  not 
any  separate  organ,  is  conscious ;  and  conscious 
within  itself,  not  of  anything  external  to  it ;  and 
again,  in  and  with  its  activity,  not  before  nor 
yet  after  activity.  Consciousness  and  activity, 
having  the  same  basis,  cannot  be  two. 

Ideas,  accordingly,  as  states  of  consciousness, 
are  dynamic.  They  are  forces,  not  forms.  In 
a  similar  sense,  space  has  been  said  to  be  a 
force,  not  a  form.  The  simplest  idea  that  psy- 
chology has  to  deal  with  is  the  sensation.  More 
complex  ideas  are  the  perception  and  the  con- 
ception. First,  however,  of  sensation.  Partic- 
ular colors,  tastes,  sounds,  smells,  and  the  like 
are  sensations ;  and  again  and  again  these  have 
been  defined  as  the  elements  of  knowledge,  as 
only  the  material  out  of  which  mind  builds  its  ex- 
periences ;  but,  apart  from  other  equally  serious 
objections,  this  definition  does  not  accord  with 
8 


114  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

the  evidence  of  recent  experiments.  Mind  does 
not  build  its  objects  out  of  sensations  as  "sim- 
ple ideas ;  "  but  sensations  are,  in  the  first  place, 
induced  by  the  activity  of  mind,  and  are,  in  the 
second  place,  relationally  one,  not  individually 
exclusive.  The  Law  of  Relativity,  specially 
applicable  to  the  sensuous  consciousness,  has 
been  discussed  already;  and  it  is  to  be  inter- 
preted as  showing  more  than  anything  else  that 
consciousness  is  vitally  incident  to  a  relating 
activity.  The  simple  sensation,  then,  is  not 
knowledge,  in  the  sense  of  being  an  element; 
it  is  not  in  itself  consciousness  at  all.  What, 
then,  is  it?  Why,  there  is  no  simple  sensation. 
The  sensation  talked  about  is  but  an  epistemolo- 
gist's  abstraction  or  indirection  for  the  source 
or  basis  of  knowledge ;  namely,  for  actual  rela- 
tionship or  organic  activity.  At  times  the  epis- 
temologist,  although  throughout  blinded  into 
thinking  of  knowledge  as  a  thing  quite  by  itself, 
has  got  so  far  as  to  say  that  pure  sensations 
were  not  knowledge  themselves,  but  only  the 
antecedent  stimuli  of  the  mind's  life;  but  this, 
at  best,  is  to  go  only  half-way  to  the  real  truth. 
Sensation  is  real  not  even  as  external  stimulus. 
Not  we  have  sensations,  whatever  their  function 
be  said  to  be,  but  the  consciousness  of  an  organ- 
ism is  sensuous. 


IDEAS  NOT  FORMS  BUT  FORCES.         1 15 

Higher  in  the  scale  are  perceptions.  These 
are  commonly  distinguished  as  the  ideas  of 
individual  things,  of  single  wholes,  in  the 
outer  world.  One  perceives  a  chair,  a  book,  a 
man;  and  each  one  of  these  perceptions  com- 
prises a  large  complex  of  sensuous  qualities, 
such  as  color  and  touch,  but  withal  an  ordered 
or  relational  or  organic  complex.  The  per- 
ceived world,  as  a  whole,  is  the  entire  sphere 
of  the  consciousness  of  things  in  space,  the 
world  in  general  that  we  have  about  us  with  all 
its  manifold  parts.  But  ordered  complexes 
correspond  to  co-ordinated  activity.  A  free 
activity  is  only  the  realization  of  order;  or, 
conversely,  order  is  the  possibility  of  freedom.1 
For  example,  to  be  almost  as  commonplace  as 
Aristotle,  when  he  said  that  things  were  visible 
by  reason  of  their  visibility,  only  sitters  per- 
ceive chairs,  only  readers  are  conscious  of 
books,  and  in  general  only  those  who  are  able 
to  move  are  aware  of  a  world  in  space.  The 
perceived  world,  then,  in  so  far  as  a  whole,  in 
so  far  as  having  any  fixity  or  permanence  or 
order,  in  so  far  as  real,  is  but  consequent  upon 
or  correspondent  to,  if  not  indeed  identical 
with,  an  acquired  freedom  of  activity.  The 
real  perception  is  but  the  outer  mark  or  the 
1  Cf.  pp.  81-83. 


Il6  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

language  of  a  habit,  since  belief  is  never  in 
anything  that  does  not  answer  to  some  freedom 
of  the  self;  or,  again,  wholeness  or  complete- 
ness or  individuality  can  belong  only  to  that 
which  mediates  activity.  Not  things,  but 
tools  —  that  is,  real  media  of  self-expression  — 
are  whole  and  individual ;  and  perception  is  of 
tools  or  media. 

But  the  perceived  world  in  general  is  a  broken 
whole,  being  made  up  of  many  wholes  instead 
of  being  a  single  whole  itself.  It  is  compar- 
able with  one's  study,  where  books,  papers, 
pictures,  and  pieces  of  furniture  are  more  often 
the  media  of  apparently  separate  activities  than 
the  single  medium  of  one  activity.  The  mul- 
tiplicity, however,  or  the  differentiation,  is  not 
essential  to  the  things  themselves;  and  the 
activities,  albeit  apparently  unrelated  or  ran- 
dom, are  still  those  of  a  student  seeking  a 
realer  expression  of  himself.  The  multiplicity 
is  evidence  or  earnest  of  a  single  organizing 
activity  quite  as  truly  as  of  many  separate 
activities.  Indeed,  as  has  been  pointed  out 
before,  separation  is  indispensable  to  the  action 
of  an  organism,  and  is  even  induced  by  it. 
There  is  no  unity  without  plurality.  In  the 
study  books  and  chairs  and  other  things  are 
properly  distinguished  only  by  a  student,  and 


IDEAS  NOT  FORMS  BUT  FORCES.         WJ 

in  the  general  world  of  perception  distinctions 
only  mark  the  organic  life,  always  with  some 
struggle  or  tension,  of  an  individual. 

But,  further,  every  individual  is  one  of  the 
distinguished  things.  Even  men  are  things, 
distinct  from  other  men,  or  from  animals  or 
plants  or  clods  of  earth.  True,  a  man  has  a 
greater  individual  power  over  nature  than  an 
animal  or  a  clod,  but  this  means  no  more  and 
no  less  than  that  a  man  is  the  single  organized 
activity  of  a  larger,  more  complex  group  of 
things.  A  man  is  still  a  relational  part  of  the 
whole.  His  greater  power,  instead  of  isolating 
him,  only  relates  him  more  closely,  and  his 
activity  only  realizes  him  as  an  organ  of  the 
whole.  It  is  to  be  remembered,  moreover,  that 
animals  and  plants  and  clods  have  their  peculiar 
characters  rather  for  him  than  in  themselves. 

And,  if  perception  is  of  the  individual  wholes 
of  experience,  of  the  wholes  that  mediate  co- 
ordinated activity,  conception  is  the  organizing 
activity  that  underlies  the  differentiation  of 
the  wholes  and  seeks  the  fulfilment  of  their 
unity  or  relationship.  A  conception  is  thus 
rather  an  act  than  an  object  of  consciousness. 
Unity,  in  fact,  could  never  be  anything  else 
but  an  act.  As  an  object  in  the  ordinary  sense, 
it  is  absolutely  impossible.      Perceptions  are 


Il8  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

objects  only  because  of  the  conceptual  activ- 
ity, the  organizing  activity,  with  which  they 
are  always  in  tension.  Thus  words  are  percep- 
tions from  the  standpoint  of  the  activity  that 
would  reduce  them  to  a  complete  sentence ;  and 
sentences  from  the  standpoint  of  a  relation  in  a 
still  wider  experience.  But  —  and  here  is  an 
important  point  —  the  two,  perception  and  con- 
ception, are  inseparable;  nay,  they  are  organi- 
cally one.  Of  course,  conceptions  have  often 
been  looked  upon  as  distinct  contents  of  mind, 
as  independently  real  objects;  but  such  a  view 
of  them,  now  quite  out  of  the  question,  was  nec- 
essary, only  because  mind  was  supposed  to  be 
something  peculiar  and  apart,  and  unity,  accord- 
ingly, to  be  extrinsic  to  the  world  of  things. 
To-day  conceptions  may  be  called  objective, 
but  they  are  not  objects.  They  are  "spirit- 
ually" objective. 

The  distinction  between  perception  and  con- 
ception is  parallel  to  that,  with  which  we 
have  become  familiar,  between  natural  and 
social  environment.  Just  as  natural  environ- 
ment is  a  social  institution,  so  the  world  of 
perceptions  is  symbolic  of  conception,  being 
the  language  or  medium  of  the  conceptual 
activity.  Conception,  in  other  words,  is 
essentially  a  social   function.     And,   to  men- 


IDEAS  NOT  FORMS  BUT  FORCES.         1 19 

tion  another  circumstance  not  less  significant 
to  the  lines  of  thought  that  have  been  pursued 
here,  the  three  stages  of  knowledge,  —  sensa- 
tion, perception,  and  conception,  —  as  they  have 
usually  been  described,  are  not  stages  at  all, 
but  are  organically  one  and  so  contemporaneous, 
being  abstracted  aspects  of  the  organic  whole, 
which  mental  life  comprises.  Sensations,  as 
was  asserted  above,  are  induced  by  the  very 
activity  of  mind,  being  under  no  conceivable 
circumstances  the  given  elements  or  materials 
of  mind's  activity;  and  perceptions,  in  their 
turn,  are  incident  to  the  tension  in  organic 
life,  which  is  the  activity  of  mind,  between 
existing  habits  of  action  and  the  underlying 
relating  activity,  or,  say,  between  unities  and 
unity  or  organs  and  organism.1 

Now  do  we  see  still  more  clearly,  still  more 
conclusively,  that  ideas,  as  mind's  so-called 
objects,  are  forces,  not  forms.  For  the  earlier 
psychology  sensations  were  formal,  because 
given  elements  of  knowledge ;  and  perceptions, 
because  of  external  things  or  wholes;  and  con- 
ceptions, because  of  abstract  universals:  but 
psychology  to-day  finds  them  all  organically 
one,  and  at  the   same  time  vitally  incident  to 

1  See  "  The  Stages  of  Knowledge,"  in  Psychological  Review, 
March,  1897. 


120  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

the  activity  of  the  self.  They  are,  indeed, 
mind's;  but  mind  is  itself  the  substantial 
force,  the  dynamic  reality,  that  a  relational 
universe  requires  for  its  very  integrity. 

In  applying  the  term  "  force  "  to  the  idea,  or 
to  mind,  we  shall  doubtless  meet  with  hostile 
demonstrations  from  certain  physical  scientists. 
Still  it  is  not  impossible  that  physical  science 
has  been  talking  about  forces  without  thinking 
very  deeply  about  them.  Certainly  it  seems 
rather  strange  for  anybody  to  suppose  that 
forces  are  material  when  no  force  was  ever 
discovered  that  did  not  manifest,  at  least  with 
some  definiteness,  a  recognized  law.  The 
fact  that  forces  are  always  lawful  —  else  not 
discovered  —  ought  to  suggest  either  that  they 
are  not  material  or  that  matter  is  not  what  the 
abstracted  scientist  would  have  it.  As  a  matter 
of  truth,  however,  science  has  always  been 
better  than  its  language,  really  meaning  by 
force  the  manifestation  of  an  activity  incident 
to  the  relations  of  things.  Thus  we  are  often 
told  that  heat  expands  and  cold  contracts;  but 
we  know,  and  those  who  tell  us  mean,  that 
expansion  is  heat  and  that  contraction  is  cold, 
or,  more  generally,  that  heat  is  only  a  mode  of 
motion,  motion  itself  being  the  expression  and 
substantiation  of  existing  relationship.     Mat- 


IDEAS  NOT  FORMS  BUT  FORCES.  121 

ter,  then,  is  not  dynamic;  only  relationship  is 
dynamic,  unless  matter  itself  be  nothing  but 
relationship;  and  forces  are  not  material  or 
abstractly  physical,  but  are  as  psychical  as 
ideas.  Forces  are  themselves  ideas,  just  as 
ideas  are  forces.  Many  pages  ago  1  this  state- 
ment was  made :  "  Not  only  are  things  related, 
but  in  them  and  of  them  exists  a  relating  activ- 
ity, which  is  mind."  By  physical  science  the 
same  mind  is  known  as  force.  In  the  world  as 
an  organism,  in  a  self-active  system  of  actual 
relations,  matter  and  mind  are  not  two  but  one. 
Modern  physics  and  modern  chemistry,  by  their 
use  of  mathematical  formulae,  of  curves  and  of 
figures  of  all  sorts,  have  blown  their  physical 
elements,  their  molecules  and  their  atoms,  into 
absolute  nothings,  or  rather  into  the  most  imagi- 
nary abstractions  for  something  fundamentally 
different. 

Psychology,  however,  as  we  have  seen,  has 
experienced  a  similar  explosion,  and  physical 
science  and  psychical  science  have  proved  to  be 
only  indirections  for  each  other.  The  latter 
has  studied  the  conscious  self;  the  former,  the 
changes  in  an  outer  world  or  not-self;  but  con- 
sciousness has  proved  to  be  intrinsic  to  the  very 
process  that  has  been  found  in  the  outer  world. 
1  Pp.  45  ff. 


122  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

Forces,  as  not  blind,  and  ideas,  as  not  formal,  are 
identical ;  and  the  sciences  concerned  with  them 
are  looking  at  the  same  reality,  only  from  op- 
posite sides.  Thus,  they  see  action  but  from  the 
opposites,  force  and  law,  and  freedom  but  from 
the  opposites,  nature  and  will,  and  spirit  but 
from  the  opposites,  body  and  mind.  Thinking 
of  either  one,  of  physical  or  of  psychical  science, 
and  of  its  long  and  persistent  abstraction,  I 
seem  to  see  a  man  standing  with  his  back  to  a 
mirror  and  so  unable  to  recognize  himself,  his 
own  back,  in  the  reflected  image  behind  him. 
If  only  he  would  become  less  abstracted  and 
turn  around  fairly  and  squarely;  if  only  psy- 
chology and  physical  science  would  once  for 
all  face  each  other ! 

So,  then,  ideas  are  forces.  A  word,  however, 
in  popular  discourse,  expresses  very  well  the 
true  nature  of  an  idea.  The  word  is  plan.  Ideas 
are  plans,  and  consciousness  is  always  a  plan- 
ning. As  plans,  ideas  are  sure  to  become 
motives,  for  they  accompany  and  mediate,  not 
a  coming  activity,  but  an  already  present  activ- 
ity. As  plans,  then,  ideas  are  forces.  What 
is  planning  but  a  process  wherein  manifold 
things,  of  which  the  planner  is  himself  one,  as- 
sume such  an  expression  of  their  relations  as 
will  set  activity  free? 


CHAPTER  X. 

ILLUSTRATIONS  FROM  EDUCATION. 

UNDER  the  control  of  a  Dynamic  Idealism 
educational  methods  must  differ  widely 
from  what  they  are  or  have  been  under  Formal 
Idealism.  A  few  words,  then,  additional  to 
what  has  been  said  incidentally  already,  in  re- 
gard to  the  changes,  cannot  but  be  of  some 
interest  here,  since  they  will  at  least  serve  the 
purposes  of  illustration. 

Consistent  with  Formal  Idealism  we  have 
found  (i)  the  pursuit  of  knowledge  solely  for 
knowledge's  sake;  (2)  instruction  in  dead  lan- 
guages, that  is,  in  wholly  abstract  and  unmean- 
ing media  of  expression ;  (3)  preference  either 
for  principle-lessons  or  for  pure  object-lessons ; 
and  (4)  compulsion.  In  a  word,  under  Formal 
Idealism,  education  is  naturally  a  discipline,  not 
an  interest;  a  preparation  for  something  else, 
not  in  itself  a  vocation.  To  see  education  in 
this  light,  however,  is  to  imply  that  a  change 
has  already  set  in.  Consciousness  of  the  old 
comes  only  with  the  assertion  of  the  new.     In 


124  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

fact,  consciousness  —  and  this  is  but  a  sort  of 
summary  of  the  preceding  chapter  —  sets  the 
new  free  in  the  old. 

But,  to  put  the  new  aside  for  a  moment,  and 
enlarge  a  little  upon  the  old,  knowledge  for 
knowledge's  sake  as  an  ideal  in  school  methods, 
carries  with  it  the  slavish  use  of  single  text- 
books, the  cultivation  of  memory  as  a  distinct 
and  peculiarly  valuable  faculty,  the  evolution  of 
teachers  into  military  directors  or  masters  of  a 
routine,  the  resort  to  rewards  and  punishments, 
such  as  prizes,  tasks,  and  the  like,  to  secure 
attention,  and  the  complete  separation  of  bodily 
exercise  and  intellectual  activity.  Upon  this 
general  plan  it  is  no  wonder  that  in  social  life, 
in  business,  church,  and  state,  the  intellectual 
suicides  are  so  numerous.  Knowledge  for 
knowledge's  sake  is  bound  to  make  stupid  men. 

In  a  curriculum  of  dead  languages  a  separa- 
tion of  subjects  is  inevitable ;  and  among  these 
subjects,  or  among  the  men  devoted  to  them,  a 
competitive  individualism  is  bound  to  prevail. 
In  the  competition,  moreover,  what  above  was 
referred  to  as  the  dead  language  of  athletics 
has  its  perfectly  natural  and  appropriate  place. 
The  body  must  be  exercised,  and  Formal  Ideal- 
ism finds  no  exercise  of  the  body  in  the  thought 
life,  as  well   as  no  thought  in  the   body   life. 


ILLUSTRATIONS  FROM  EDUCATION.       125 

University  faculties  are  often  disturbed  over 
the  problem  of  requiring  physical  exercise,  and 
of  making  this  a  recognized  part  of  the  prep- 
aration for  a  degree;  but  if  they  teach  dead 
languages,  and  cherish  isolated  instead  of  organ- 
ized departments,  and  impose  certain  required 
courses  of  study,  they  have  no  reason  to  hesi- 
tate a  moment.  Compulsory  gymnastics  goes 
with  compulsion  in  any  other  line.  Legs  and 
arms  should  be  compelled  to  work  as  well  as 
eyes  and  ears. 

Again,  some  of  the  noteworthy  incidents  of 
the  compulsion  that  is  natural  to  Formalism, 
are  the  following:  (1)  the  tradition  of  a  school- 
age,  as  if  the  child  had  no  mind  until  reaching 
a  certain  year ;  (2)  the  subjection  of  all  pupils 
to  one  line;  (3)  the  measurement  of  work  in 
terms  of  hours,  weeks,  and  years ;  and  (4)  di- 
vision of  the  whole  course  into  periods  unrelated 
to  each  other,  —  as,  for  example,  into  the  kinder- 
garten period,  when  the  pupil  plays ;  the  school 
period,  when  he  laboriously  accumulates  facts 
and,  as  one  has  put  it,  learns  how  to  learn ;  and 
the  university  period,  when,  in  spite  of  his  long- 
induced  blindness,  he  undertakes  "  original  in- 
vestigations," at  last  learning  or  seeming  to  learn 
for  himself. 

And,  to  conclude  this  account  of  the  old  in 


126  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

education,  Formalism  has  naturally  assumed  that 
persons  without  the  use  of  the  organs  of  sight  and 
hearing  are  not  capable  of  education ;  the  other 
recognized  senses  —  smell,  taste,  and  touch  — 
being  supposed  to  have  practically  no  intellec- 
tual value.  Such  an  assumption,  of  course,  is  of 
a  kind  with  the  dogma  that  a  thinker  must  know 
German,  or  that  an  author  must  read  Greek, 
or  that  the  reading  of  some  particular  book  is 
necessary  to  culture.  But  the  fact  stands  out 
clear  to-day  that  sensation  is  not  confined  to 
the  traditional  five  senses,  nor  intellect  by  any 
means  to  the  two  higher  of  them,  sight  and 
hearing.  The  remarkable  success  and  the  rapid 
development  of  schools  for  the  blind  and  deaf 
signify  the  mistake  and  consequent  decline  of 
Formalism.  A  soldier's  mind  may  be  narrowed 
to  eyes  and  ears,  but  not  that  of  the  modern 
laborer. 

Now,  under  Dynamic  Idealism,  which  is  the 
new,  act-studies  are  the  only  natural  ones.  In 
act-studies  there  can  be  no  confinement  of  the 
student's  self.  His  education,  narrowed  to  no 
particular  organs,  to  no  particular  periods,  to  no 
particular  subjects,  is  but  a  stimulation  of  his 
natural  impulse  to  plan  the  liberation  of  his  ac- 
tivity. Ideas  that  define  to  him  the  actual  con- 
ditions of  his  natural  expression,  that  are  true 


ILLUSTRATIONS  FROM  EDUCATION.      12? 

to  him  because  setting  him  free,  are  the  only 
ideas  that  can  be  given  him,  because  the  only 
ones  that  he  will  receive. 

To  suppose  the  intention  here  to  be  to  exalt 
the  so-called  technical  schools,  to  make  the 
schools  of  the  mechanical  arts  the  only  com- 
mendable ones,  is  wholly  to  misunderstand  what 
has  been  said.  The  meaning  throughout  has 
been,  not  that  only  the  practical  sciences,  or  so- 
called  "  arts,"  have  worth,  but  that  science  in 
itself  is  practical,  that  theory  should  be  recog- 
nized as  often  more  practical  than  practice. 
The  natural  purpose  of  theory,  whether  in  a 
university  or  in  a  technical  school,  is  to  save 
men  from  the  retrogression  that  is  always  in- 
volved in  being  practical.  Theory,  as  actually 
defining  the  conditions  of  real  life,  is  practical 
in  the  extreme.  Anything  else,  indeed,  is  not 
true  theory,  but  sheer  conventionalism  busy- 
ing itself  with  intellectual  gymnastics.  The 
many  dead  languages  that  formalists  study, 
the  so-called  "  practical "  men  mechanically  use. 
Dynamic  Idealism,  however,  enjoins  a  more  prac- 
tical study  and  a  more  theoretical  use. 

The  claim  is  often  advanced  that  science  for 
practical  ends  is  inaccurate.  The  workman,  it 
is  said,  is  satisfied  with  a  rule  of  thumb,  while 
only  the  student  feels  the  true  worth  of  accu- 


128  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

racy.  But  how  absurd  such  a  contention  as  this 
is !  One  needs  only  to  work  a  little  to  find  its 
folly.  Success  in  work  is  always  dependent 
upon  accuracy.  Free  expression  of  self  can- 
not be  realized  without  it.  Set  a  student  to 
solve  one  of  the  old-time  wall-paper  problems 
in  the  old-time  way,  his  book  and  its  rules 
before  him,  and  the  chances  are  that  he  will 
make  a  mistake ;  but  give  him  a  room  to  paper 
and  make  the  labor  also  an  intimate  and  organic 
part  of  some  still  larger  interest,  and  accuracy 
will  take  care  of  itself. 

Present  psychology,  then,  is  simply  insisting 
that  education  must  find  some  way  of  applying 
in  its  methods  the  irrefutable  fact  that  real 
knowledge  is  born  and  bred  with  action,  interest 
being  only  in  what  one  is  doing,  and  ideas  being 
only  plans  of  the  existing  activity. 


CHAPTER  XL 


BODY,   MIND,   SOUL. 


THE  division  of  the  self  into  three  parts, 
body,  mind,  and  soul,  or  the  physical,  the 
mental  or  rational,  and  the  spiritual,  can  no 
longer  escape  our  recognition  and  most  careful 
consideration.  The  recent  identification  of  force 
and  idea,  or  matter  and  mind,  as  well  as  much 
in  the  earlier  discussions,  has  made  attention  to 
the  three  parts  of  the  self  absolutely  necessary. 
Without  an  explicit  interpretation  of  the  division, 
further  progress  in  this  study  would  be  out  of 
the  question. 

The  self  has  had  three  parts  since  the  begin- 
ning of  self-consciousness,  and  it  is  safe  to  say 
that  the  different  parts  have  always  been  charac- 
terized in  essentially  the  same  ways.  In  current 
thought,  particularly  among  more  popular  ideas, 
body  is  the  composite,  divisible,  destructible,  in 
which  life  may  appear,  but  to  which  life  is  not 
intrinsic ;  mind,  quite  distinct  from  body,  is  the 
law,  universal  and  formal ;  and  soul  is  the  sub- 
stantial, immaterial,  and  indivisible,  free  and  in- 
9 


130  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM, 

destructible,  the  source  at  once  of  the  body's 
life  and  of  the  mind's  will.  This  characterization, 
however,  is  only  a  restatement  of  the  main 
doctrines  of  Formal  Idealism,  so  that  it  must 
be  greatly  modified  to  be  in  line  with  more 
recent  views. 

Historically  we  of  the  Christian  era  refer  the 
view  of  the  soul  as  simple  and  immaterial  to  the 
beginning  of  Christianity;  but  also,  as  was 
shown  above,  Formal  Idealism  in  its  entirety 
takes  the  same  reference.  With  the  downfall  of 
the  civilizations  about  the  Mediterranean,  with 
the  decay  of  social  life  and  individual  character, 
with  the  decline  of  long-cherished  institutions, 
religious  and  political,  in  short,  with  the  decom- 
position that  had  infected  human  affairs  on 
every  side,  there  seemed  to  be  possible  no  other 
conception  of  the  world  and  its  manifold  interests 
than  that  of  unsubstantiality,  divisibility,  destruc- 
tibility.  For  reality,  accordingly,  men  had  to 
look  somewhere  else,  off  in  another  world,  the 
complete  negation  of  this  one,  a  world  immaterial 
and  eternal ;  and  to  this  other  world  was  supposed 
to  belong  a  corresponding  other  part  of  the  self, 
also  immaterial  and  eternal.  Even  Plato  in  his 
day  had  felt  this  movement  in  human  thought. 
Thus,  he  proved  the  soul's  immortality  through 
an  insistence  on  the  natural  permanence  of  the 


BODY,  MIND,  SOUL.  I31 

simple  or  indivisible.  That  which  has  parts  can 
perish,  he  said  in  so  many  words ;  but  the  soul  is 
without  parts,  one  and  indivisible.  Still  Chris- 
tianity gave  the  supreme  emphasis  to  Plato's 
idea,  proclaiming  the  existence  and  permanence 
of  the  indivisible,  placing  it  in  another  world, 
and  isolating  man  from  his  living  self  so  long  as 
he  remained  in  this.  The  Christian  proclamation 
also  made  mind  or  knowledge  formal,  and  so 
arbitrary,  and  body  a  negation  at  once  of  mind 
and  of  soul.  Body  was  a  negation  of  mind  in 
so  far  as  composite,  and  of  soul  in  so  far  as 
mortal  or  unsubstantial. 

But  the  separation  of  body  and  mind  and 
soul  only  shows  a  misunderstanding,  as  it  were 
a  hasty  judgment,  of  what  composition  and 
decomposition  are ;  and  the  history  of  Christian- 
ity is  a  slow  but  certain  correction  of  the 
misconception.  The  antithesis  of  the  compos- 
ite and  the  simple  has  a  much  deeper,  yes,  a 
much  more  spiritual  meaning  than  that  of  an 
absolute  division  of  the  self.  True,  the  com- 
posite may  decompose,  but  decomposition  is 
nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  differentiation 
that  an  activity,  fulfilling  something  in  the 
very  nature  of  the  parts  themselves,  induces. 
Decomposition  is  the  unmistakable  sign  of 
organic  life,  that  is  to  say,  of  the  change  that 


132  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

we  have  found  natural  in  a  world  of  substantial 
relations.  Accordingly,  instead  of  testifying  to 
the  reality  of  a  life  apart  from  what  is  found 
to  be  composite,  it  is  a  mark  of  a  life,  simple 
and  abiding,  that  claims  even  decomposition  for 
its  own ;  and  this  life,  in  and  of  the  composite, 
is  the  Soul. 

The  ancient  civilization  crumbled  as  the  mod- 
ern arose,  the  passing  of  the  one  finding  its 
inner  interpretation  in  the  building  of  the  other. 
In  individual  activity,  moreover,  essentially  the 
same  stages  and  phases  of  experience  that  are 
disclosed  in  history  are  manifest.  No  individ- 
ual ever  fully  expresses  himself  without  making 
his  past  composite.  The  decomposition,  or 
disintegration,  is  necessary,  in  order  that  the 
act  itself,  as  an  organic  adjustment  to  the  differ- 
ent present,  may  be  liberated.  All  expression 
demands  or  involves  a  constant  rearrangement 
of  its  incidents,  a  reorganization  of  its  medium, 
and  the  rearrangement  makes  "  decay."  Natur- 
ally enough,  too,  the  agent  at  a  certain  moment 
in  the  process  takes  the  negation,  that  the  decay 
implies,  literally.  He  sees  it  as  an  absolute 
negation,  and  feels  in  consequence  an  isolation 
from  himself,  a  complete  division  of  himself. 
As  has  been  suggested,  Christianity  came  when 
the  feeling  of  isolation  was  very  general.     The 


BODY,   MIND,  SOUL.  133 

negation,  however,   is    not    literal.     Life    is    in 
very  truth  the  deeper  meaning  of  death. 

In  practice  the  isolation  of  the  parts  of  the 
self  has  the  effect  of  turning  the  body  into  a 
mere  mechanism,  into  a  system  of  parts  only 
formally  related  and  so  without  activity  of  its 
own,  and  also,  not  now  to  speak  specially  of 
mind,  of  turning  the  soul  into  an  arbitrary 
agent,  which  through  an  absolute  will  commu- 
nicates movement  to  an  otherwise  helpless  body. 
A  society  of  selves  so  transformed  becomes  a 
material  body,  too,  a  mechanical  whole,  subject 
to  an  arbitrary  will,  which  resides  in  such  an 
individual  or  in  such  individuals  as  can  exercise 
the  most  physical  force.  Of  course  arbitrary 
will  is  only  another  name  for  physical  force. 
Where  will  is  arbitrary,  as  always  when  belong- 
ing to  an  isolated  soul,  might  makes  right. 
But  the  body,  individual  or  politic,  turned  into 
a  mere  mechanism,  becomes  in  reality  but  one 
part  among  many  of  the  whole  material  world, 
so  that  the  change,  with  its  accompanying  with- 
drawal of  the  self,  is  in  point  of  fact  a  way  of 
expressing  more  fully  the  part's  relation  to  the 
whole.  The  separation,  then,  brings  complete 
identification.  The  arbitrary  control,  or  as  the 
same  thing  the  subjection  of  the  body  to  the 
play  of  physical  forces,  there  being  no  activity 


134  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

possible  to  the  body  from  within,  really  does 
but  liberate  a  fulfilling  activity.  In  fact,  too, 
the  apparently  deserted  body  moves  to  its  ac- 
tivity by  no  means  so  aimlessly  and  irrespon- 
sibly as  has  often  been  supposed ;  the  control  of 
its  movements  has  been  by  no  means  so  exter- 
nal and  arbitrary.  Arbitrary  control  is  only 
another  name  for  subjective  indifference,  and 
indifference  is  a  very  distinct,  a  very  positive 
form  of  will.  The  abstraction  of  self,  to  which 
the  indifference  is  due,  is  a  complete  sanction 
of  the  force  and  arbitrariness;  or,  in  other 
words,  the  force  itself  is  the  real  soul  or  spirit. 
Instead  of  being  two  things,  then,  force  and 
spirit,  body  and  soul,  are  one.  Imperial  Rome 
was  founded  upon  their  unity,  and  individual 
experience  relies  upon  it. 

That  the  two,  even  while  they  seem  opposite, 
are  really  one,  is  shown  by  the  outcome  of 
their  opposition.  With  the  ensuing  activity, 
whether  produced  by  the  will  of  indifference  or 
produced  by  external  force,  the  supposedly 
isolated  self  returns  to  the  medium  of  its  ex- 
pression, finding  itself,  after  all,  not  the  negation 
of  its  body,  but  the  deeper  affirmation  of  it,  the 
fulfilling  essence  of  it.  Thus,  politically,  mili- 
tarism or  social  mechanicalism  and  supernatur- 
alism  have  together  been  but  the  forerunners  of 


BODY,  MIND,  SOUL.  1 35 

a  democratic  industrialism  and  naturalism ;  and, 
psychologically,  sensationalism  and  intuitional- 
ism have  preceded  a  dynamic  relationism.  Both 
politically  and  psychologically  the  spiritual  has 
returned  to  this  world,  as  the  Prophet  of  Chris- 
tianity in  his  own  person  predicted  it  would. 

How  now  to  distinguish  body  and  mind  and 
soul,  if  they  are  not  three  separate  selves,  may 
seem  to  some  a  serious  problem ;  but  the  dis- 
tinctions are  simple  enough.  Body,  as  distinct, 
is  only  an  abstraction  for  the  self's  manifoldness 
or  differentiation;  mind,  for  the  unity  of  the 
self;  and  soul,  for  the  substantial  reality.  The 
manifold  is  at  bottom  the  relational  and  dy- 
namic, and  its  relational  character  is  mind,  while 
the  dynamic  character  is  soul.  The  self  has  a 
soul  because  self-active.  Were  body  merely 
composite,  its  parts  being  only  formally  related, 
then  life  and  soul  would  not  be  intrinsic  to  it, 
and  decomposition  would  be  absolute  death; 
but  body  is  organic.  Life,  then,  is  a  property 
of  it.  Moreover,  the  criteria  of  life,  peculiar 
property  of  body,  and  of  consciousness,  pecu- 
liar to  mind,  and  of  substantiality,  peculiar  to 
soul,  are  absolutely  the  same.  Where  any  one 
is,  there  also  are  the  other  two.  At  the  very 
beginning  of  this  book,1  where  the  self  was 
1  P.  16. 


136  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

variously  defined,  now  as  a  defined  force,  now 
as  an  animate  intelligence,  and  now  as  a  re- 
sponsible agent,  the  unity  of  the  three  parts  of 
the  self  was  involved.  Here,  however,  the  self's 
unity  is  made  quite  explicit. 

To  the  theories  of  evolution  or  to  biological 
science  generally  this  fundamental  conception  of 
Dynamic  Idealism  —  namely,  the  conception  of 
the  unity  of  body,  mind,  and  soul  —  cannot  but 
be  very  welcome.  Still  there  are  many  scientists 
even  to-day  who,  in  spite  of  their  avowed  hos- 
tility to  the  theological  dogma  of  another  world 
or  of  an  isolated  selfhood,  have  retained  the  very 
standpoint  to  which  they  object.  Witness  such 
assertions  as  the  following,  sometimes  made  di- 
rectly and  openly,  sometimes  only  implied :  — 

(a)  The  environment  to  which  organic  life 
seeks  adjustment  is  essentially  alien,  adjustment 
being  secured  to  it  only  by  chance,  which, 
plainly,  is  the  scientist's  substitute  for  miracle  or 
external  mediation,  and  continued  only  by  the 
habit  of  literal  repetition,  the  substitute  for 
ritual  or  cult.  Before  adjustment  the  organism 
is  in  itself  a  mere  trembling,  unguided  life,  a 
mass  of  random  impulses,  in  short,  not  an  organ- 
ism at  all  and  certainly  not  alive;  and  after 
adjustment  it  leads  a  life  not  naturally  its  own, 
in  fact,  a  life  of  another  world. 


BODY,  MIND,  SOUL.  137 

(b)  The  process  of  evolution  has  a  creative 
power  of  its  own,  soul  as  something  quite  differ- 
ent being  evolved  from  matter,  or  again  con- 
sciousness as  a  distinct  and  novel  function 
appearing  at  a  certain  particular  time  in  the 
process  of  growth  and  self-consciousness,  also 
distinct  and  novel,  at  a  later  time,  and,  accord- 
ing to  some,  God-consciousness  or  "  cosmic " 
consciousness  at  a  time  later  still.  Obviously 
this  differs  from  theological  creationism  only  in 
placing  matter  temporally  before  soul  or  mind 
instead  of  after.  The  isolation  of  the  parts  of 
the  self  is  not  less  final  in  the  "  scientific  "  than 
in  the  theological  conception.  Roth  are  dual- 
istic,  formalistic,  supernaturalistic. 

(c)  Inheritance  is  of  acquired  characters ;  or, 
as  one  might  very  well  put  it,  inheritance  is 
literal.  This  doctrine,  not  now  so  popular  as 
formerly,  but  still  in  question,  plainly  involves 
an  isolation  of  the  self  from  itself,  for  it  is  funda- 
mentally deterministic.  It  is  quite  in  accord 
with  the  view  that  environment  is  alien,  and  that 
adjustments  are  continued  through  the  habit  of 
literal  repetition.  Under  its  sway  the  evolu- 
tional series  would  have  to  be  in  parts  differing 
in  kind,  since  difference  on  any  other  plan  would 
be  out  of  the  question.  Inheritance  of  acquired 
characters  means  caste  in  nature  quite  as  con- 


I38  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

clusively  as  it  means  caste  in  human  society; 
and  the  three  principal  castes  that  it  has  de- 
termined are  those  that  correspond  to  the  three 
parts  of  the  self,  —  the  physical,  the  intelligent, 
and  the  spiritual. 

(d)  The  group,  or  class,  is  a  community,  hav- 
ing a  basis  of  union  that  is  independent  of  the 
differences  in  the  individual  members.  This 
means,  of  course,  that  types  are  persistent  or 
immutable;  and  it  is  plainly  of  a  piece  with  the 
other  doctrines  mentioned  here, — with  envi- 
ronment as  alien  and  with  adjustment  as  secured 
by  chance  or  miracle  and  continued  by  mere 
repetition,  with  creation  or  evolution  as  sudden 
or  arbitrary,  and  with  inheritance  as  literal. 

In  these  ways,  then,  among  many  others, 
science  has  taken  to  itself  the  very  standpoint 
against  which  it  is  supposed  to  have  reacted. 
Perhaps,  however,  reaction  always  requires  a 
counter-reproduction  of  what  has  offended ;  but, 
be  that  as  it  may,  science  at  the  present  time 
appears  to  be  quite  as  much  at  war  with  itself 
as  with  theology,  for  from  many  sides  it  is  all 
but  ready  to  declare  that  environment  is  not 
alien  but  natural,  being  vitally  one  with  the 
organism  or  self,  and  that  both  a  habit  of  literal 
repetition  and  an  inheritance  of  acquired  char- 
acters are  impossible,  adjustments  being  con- 


BODY,  MIND,  SOUL.  1 39 

tinued  by  an  organic  expression  that  involves 
change,  and  that  causation  is  rather  a  matter  of 
interaction  than  of  creative  action  or  independ- 
ent reaction,  and,  finally,  that  the  group  is  a 
single,  living  organism,  not  a  community. 
Science,  accordingly,  as  was  said  above,  can- 
not but  welcome  the  conclusion  of  psychology, 
as  here  presented  in  the  name  of  Dynamic 
Idealism,  that  body  and  mind  and  soul  are  one, 
not  three.  This  unity  is  itself  the  inner 
meaning  of  the  rising  scientific  conceptions. 

But  there  remains  for  consideration  here  a 
very  important  doctrine.  Perhaps  it  should  be 
called  a  belief;  but,  whatever  we  call  it,  the 
immortality  of  the  soul  is  an  essential  part  of 
human  consciousness,  and  although  the  conser- 
vation of  matter  and  the  eternity  of  truth  have 
long  been  positive  convictions  among  men,  the 
soul's  immortality  has  been,  and  is  still  com- 
monly supposed  to  be,  impossible  without  a 
complete  independence  both  of  body  and  of 
mind.  In  the  face  of  this  supposition,  what 
can  we  say? 

Two  things  can  be  said  very  promptly.  In 
the  first  place,  science  has  been  in  error,  and 
in  some  measure  at  least  has  confessed  itself 
so,  whenever  it  has  assumed  that  matter  as 
conserved  and  matter  as  a  distinct  substance, 


140  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

abstractly  physical,  were  ideas  that  could  stand 
together;  and,  in  the  second  place,  the  reli- 
gious consciousness  has  been  in  error,  whenever 
it  has  allowed  itself  to  think  that  individuality 
was  solely  an  affair  of  physical  determinations. 
A  conserved  matter  is  force,  not  matter,  and  it 
has  come  to  be  so  recognized.  The  doctrine 
of  material  conservation  never  really  referred  to 
the  constancy  of  a  sum  of  any  observed  parts  of 
the  physical  world,  but  only  to  that  of  the  sum 
of  the  world's  parts  in  the  abstract.  With 
this  latter  reference,  however,  it  has  been- 
nothing  but  an  indirection  for  the  fact  that 
parts  are  relations  and  that  relationship  is 
dynamic;  it  has  been  simply  a  blind  way  of 
admitting  to  one's  thought  about  the  world  the 
intelligence  and  the  spiritual  substantiality  of 
matter,  or  to  give  even  another  name,  a  secret 
door  for  escape  from  dualism  or  a  physical  sub- 
stitute for  soul  or  mind.  And,  on  the  side  of 
the  religious  consciousness,  a  disposition  to  in- 
direction and  substitution  is  not  less  apparent. 
Religion  also  has  had  its  secret  way  out  of 
dualism,  its  hidden  door  in  the  panelling  of  its 
sanctuary.  Thus,  bodily  isolation  as  the  mark 
of  individuality  and  immortality  as  dependent 
upon  absolute  separation  from  the  physical  are 
but  counterparts  of  the  scientist's  doctrines  that 


BODY,  MIND,  SOUL.  14 1 

matter  is  a  separate  substance,  and  that  it  is 
conserved  in  its  sum  total ;  and  just  as  the  con- 
servation saves  matter  from  being  abstractly 
physical,  so  the  immortality  saves  individuality 
from  being  limited  to  an  isolated  body.  If 
conservation  is  a  physical,  then  immortality  is 
a  spiritual,  indirection  for  the  fact  that  bodies, 
or  parts,  or,  in  general,  that  individuals,  are 
not  mere  component  elements  but  relations. 
In  short,  conserved  matter  and  immortal  soul 
are  one  and  the  same  reality;  or,  as  doctrines, 
one  and  the  same  truth.  A  conserved  matter 
is  not  abstractly  physical,  and  an  immortal  soul 
is  not  abstractly  spiritual ;  but  both  are  ways  — 
each  one  of  which  supports  and  corrects  the 
other  —  of  recognizing  that  in  its  relational  or 
organic  character  both  the  universe  as  a  whole 
and  the  individuality  that  relationship  involves 
are  substantial  and  abiding.  Relationships, 
not  bodies,  are  immortal ;  and  what  is  any  one 
of  us,  as  an  individual,  but  a  relation  ? 

Now,  reducing  the  foregoing  to  a  simple 
sum,  we  get  the  following.  Were  the  material 
composite,  the  immortal  would  have  to  be 
immaterial,  since  decomposition  in  the  material 
would  necessarily  bring  death ;  but  the  material 
is  in  reality  organic,  as  both  science  and  the- 
ology have  indirectly  conceded,  and  decompo- 


142  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

sition,  accordingly,  is  a  mark  of  continued 
life.  In  the  sense,  then,  of  matter  as  organic, 
a  sense  in  which  the  physical  and  the  rational 
and  the  spiritual  are  one,  the  soul  is  both 
material  and  immortal,  or  immortal  because 
material.  The  composite  must  die,  but  organ- 
ism never  dies.  Individual  organs,  too,  as 
mere  physical  parts,  are  constantly  passing 
away,  but  not  as  relations.  The  organic  is 
immortal,  even  under  Plato's  standards,  since 
it  is  simple  and  indivisible;  but  it  is  simple  and 
indivisible,  not  in  the  sense  of  a  direct  negation 
of  the  divisible,  but  in  the  sense  of  unity  or  sim- 
plicity as  real  through  difference  and  division, 
that  is,  in  the  deeper  sense  that  identifies  the 
part  and  the  whole,  the  many  and  the  one. 

Certain  recent  biologists  have  also  said  that 
organism  never  dies;  and  although  they  have 
been  thinking  of  particular  very  minute  forms, 
so  minute  in  fact  as  to  have  only  a  hypothetical 
existence,  yet  their  teachings  have  implied  the 
same  notion  of  immortality  as  has  been  offered 
here.  They  have  but  confused  the  immortality 
of  a  hypothetical  part  with  that  of  what  such  a 
part  really  stands  for  in  their  own  theories,  the 
organism  as  a  whole  in  its  essential  character. 
Their  immortal  form  is  only  a  physical  abstrac- 
tion for  the  immortality  of  the  organic.     Less 


BODY,  MIND,  SOUL.  1 43 

perhaps  than  any  other  "  objective "  science  is 
biology  hampered  by  the  assumption  that  real- 
ity is  composite,  or,  as  the  other  side  of  this 
assumption,  that  unity  is  external  to  things;  but 
even  biology  has  been  making  obviously  wrong 
uses  of  division,  expecting  quantitative  or  physi- 
cal analysis  to  pass  for  qualitative  analysis.  Not, 
then,  until  it  is  ready  to  look  to  the  whole,  in- 
stead of  to  the  minute  part,  for  the  "  vital  unit," 
or  at  least  to  see  the  whole  in  the  part  that  it  hy- 
pothetically  talks  about,  can  it  even  hope  to  find 
any  satisfactory  solutions  of  its  many  problems. 
But  as  to  immortality  in  Relationism  or  Dy- 
namic Idealism,  we  have  not  found  the  denial 
that  at  first  thought  might  have  been  expected. 
Dynamic  Idealism,  although  identifying  matter 
and  spirit,  still  holds  that  the  individual,  in  re- 
spect to  just  that  which  makes  him  substantial, 
in  respect  to  his  relationship,  is  immortal.  The 
individual's  immortality,  however,  is  not  in  a  life 
in  some  other  place  ;  it  is  not,  as  some  Chris- 
tians still  imagine,  in  a  Heaven  located  they 
know  not  where,  nor,  as  metempsychosis  has 
put  it,  in  other  unsuspected  parts  of  the  known 
universe  ;  it  does  not  depend  at  att  upon  a  mere 
change  of  place.  Instead  of  being  an  escape, 
complete  or  partial,  from  this  world's  responsi- 
bilities, it  is  the  ever-deepening  expression  of 


144  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

ever-present  relations,  of  an  ever-assertive  char- 
acter. In  certain  respects  metempsychosis  is 
a  more  inspiring  conception  of  immortality  than 
complete  translation;  but,  after  all,  its  diffi- 
culties to  the  thinker  are  not  essentially  differ- 
ent. Thus,  from  the  start  it  presupposes  an 
absolute  separation  of  soul  and  body,  and  it 
assumes  that  individuality  is  physically  deter- 
mined, death  consisting  in  passing  from  one 
particular  body  to  another  wholly  distinct.  Its 
inspiring  character  consists  in  its  implied  asser- 
tion that  the  soul  has  a  real  and  final  depend- 
ence, if  not  upon  a  body,  at  least  upon  body 
as  such.  In  human  history,  too,  metempsy- 
chosis, in  one  form  and  another,  has  been 
taught,  when  such  movements  as  distant  coloni- 
zation and  as  far-reaching  conquest  have  been 
going  on ;  and  although  these  movements  may 
seem  to  be  only  the  passing  of  an  unchanging 
character,  national  or  individual,  from  one  place 
to  another,  or  the  subjection  of  a  peculiar  life  to 
altogether  new  ways  and  new  institutions,  still 
underneath,  as  every  thoughtful  historian  to-day 
is  convinced,  the  new  life  is  but  a  natural  out- 
come, a  true  realization  of  the  force  or  motive 
in  the  old.1     What  was  said  of  travel  pages  ago 

1  In  another  book,  in  many  ways  supplementary  to  this 
one,  I  have  undertaken  to  interpret  history  in  the  way  sug- 


BODY,  MIND,  SOUL.  1 45 

can  be  said  here  of  metempsychosis,  or  of  col- 
onization or  conquest.  It  is  only  "  the  fulfil- 
ling expression  of  already  existing  relations ;  " 
it  is  a  staying  at  home  even  while  one  moves 
away,  a  freedom  even  at  the  time  of  subjec- 
tion, a  being  here  even  in  passing  yonder. 
And  the  same  must  be  said  also,  by  way 
of  interpretation,  even  of  the  Christian's  im- 
mortality. The  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  here 
and  now.  Immortality  is  as  much  before  death 
as  after  it.  The  real  self  is  in  a  natural,  an 
original  adjustment  to  the  true  sphere  of  its 
activity. 

The  primary  purpose  of  this  chapter,  how- 
ever, was  not  to  discuss  immortality,  but  to 
define  precisely  and  explicitly  the  unity  of 
body,  mind,  and  soul,  which  had  been  such  an 
important  implication  in  all  that  had  preceded. 
The  question  of  immortality  forced  itself  upon 
us  because  it  was  necessary  to  meet  the  most 
serious  objection  that  could  possibly  be  raised 
to  the  discovered  union.  So  now,  having  met 
the  objection,  we  find,  in  summary  of  the  main 
discussion  of  the  chapter,  that  body  is  the 
relational  as  manifold,  and  mind  the  relational 

gested  here.  See  "  Citizenship  and  Salvation,  or  Greek  and 
Jew :  A  Study  in  the  Philosophy  of  History."  Little,  Brown 
&  Co.,  1897. 

10 


146  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

as  one,  and  soul  the  relational  as  substantial. 
In  these  characterizations  the  three  so-called 
parts  of  the  self  are  made  absolutely  one.  In 
the  relational  as  the  organic  the  three  are  one.1 

1  In  an  appendix  to  this  chapter,  beginning  on  page  227,  I 
have  given  in  outline  a  special  study  of  the  subject  of  immor- 
tality. In  regard  to  this  subject  interest  is  always  so  keen, 
and  the  danger  of  misunderstanding  is  so  great,  that  it  seemed 
altogether  desirable  to  present  a  second  treatment,  complete  in 
itself  and  formally  independent  of  that  in  the  text 


CHAPTER  XII. 

TIME. 

THE  recent  discussion  of  immortality,  or  of 
the  relation  of  body,  mind,  and  soul, 
has  of  course  implied  a  very  definite  doctrine  of 
time,  so  that  the  transition  from  the  previous 
chapter  to  the  present  one  will  not  seem 
sudden. 

Dualism  and  its  blood-relation  Formalism 
have  no  choice  but  to  regard  time,  like  space, 
as  a  form  in  which  the  consciousness  of  things, 
and  particularly  the  consciousness  of  self,  occur. 
They  see  the  past  and  the  future  as  literally  here- 
tofore and  hereafter,  respectively,  the  different 
parts  of  time  being  absolutely  distinct.  For 
them,  both  as  to  its  wholeness  and  as  to  its 
parts,  time  is  quite  external  to  the  content  of 
consciousness.  But  Relationism,  able  to  say, 
as  we  have  seen,  that  the  hereafter  is  also  here, 
has  a  widely  different  view.  Relationism  finds 
time  as  well  as  space  dynamic,  believing  it  to 
be  involved  in  the  process  to  which  the  events 


I48  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

in  it  belong,  and  so  to  be  something  more  than 
a  sum  of  unrelated  periods  or  than  a  single 
very  long  period  for  the  mere  reception  of 
events  from  without.  Many  people,  it  is  true, 
seem  often  to  live  as  if  events  were  only  in 
time,  what  is  past  and  what  is  future  having 
nothing  at  all  to  do  with  what  is  present ;  but 
such  people  have  no  real  time-consciousness. 
Really  to  be  conscious  of  time  is  to  use  time,  to 
live  with  it  as  well  as  in  it;  and  a  used  time  is 
certainly  not  formal.  The  human  machine  — 
that  is  to  say,  the  poor  slavish  official,  whose 
activity  is  rather  another's  than  his  own  —  lives 
in  time  and  without  any  consciousness  of  it;  or,  if 
he  be  conscious  of  it,  he  is  so  because  some 
interest  of  his  own  conflicts  with  that  of  his 
employer.  In  such  a  consciousness,  however, 
he  is  using  time  as  means  to  an  end ;  and,  in 
general,  for  the  active  self  time  is  one  of  the 
resources  applied  to  the  end  of  self-expression,  — 
so  to  speak,  one  of  the  things  done.  A  lived 
time,  a  used  time,  is  obviously  dynamic. 

But  a  good  deal  more  than  this  needs  to  be 
said;  for  so  much  is  hardly  satisfactory,  even 
if  its  meaning  be  at  once  apparent.  We  must 
therefore  turn  to  psychology,  which  has  busied 
itself  a  good  deal  with  certain  facts  about  time 
and  our  consciousness  of  it.     These  facts  will 


TIME.  I49 

all  be  found  to  be  strong  witnesses  against  the 
dualistic  or  formalistic  doctrines. 

As  straws  telling  the  direction  of  the  wind, 
there  are  the  recognized  dependence  of  the 
consciousness  of  time  on  rhythm,  and  the  sim- 
ple circumstance  that  memory  is  only  a  special 
way  of  viewing  some  present  condition  or  dis- 
turbance. But  of  peculiar  interest  and  value 
are  the  following  paradoxes :  (1)  the  real,  the  ex- 
perienced present  is  the  sum  of  two  unrealities, 
a  little  past  and  a  little  future;  (2)  an  empty 
time  is  no  time;  (3)  a  rilled  time  is  timeless; 
and  (4)  an  explained  series  in  time  —  that  is,  an 
explained  history  or  an  explained  evolution  — 
is  no  longer  a  series.  These  paradoxes,  to 
which  in  order  our  attention  now  turns,  will 
all  prove  to  mean  the  same  thing,  as  if  they 
were  four  roads  leading  to  Rome. 

The  interval  of  time  known  as  present  or 
now  must,  strictly  speaking,  be  in  itself  a  zero, 
having  no  duration  at  all.  The  now  or  present, 
in  other  words,  is  not  a  part  of  time,  even  as  a 
mere  point  is  not  a  part  of  space.  Conscious- 
ness, however,  recognizes  a  present,  which  by 
some  writers  has  been  styled  the  "  specious  " 
present,  including  a  little  past  and  a  little  fu- 
ture. Hence  the  paradox  that  the  present,  real 
to  consciousness,  is  the  sum  of  two  unrealities. 


150  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

But  the  meaning  of  this  is,  in  the  now  well- 
worn  phrase,  that  time  is  not  composite  but 
relational.  Thus,  in  view  of  the  relational  char- 
acter, past  and  future  have  to  be  parts  of  the 
present;  which  is  only  another  way  of  saying 
that  time  is  nothing  if  apart  from  the  things 
in  it,  since  the  things  refuse  to  be  isolated  from 
each  other.  Some  experimental  psychologists 
have  been  thoughtful  or  foolish  enough  to 
measure  the  "specious"  present,  finding  its 
length  to  vary  from  four  or  five  to  as  many 
even  as  twelve  seconds ;  but  the  "  specious " 
present  is  something  other  than  a  quantity. 
Every  activity  has  its  now,  or  present,  the 
length  of  which  is  determined  by  the  degree 
in  which  the  means  to  the  action  are  organized 
for  realization  of  the  end.  The  absolute  now 
would  be  the  present  of  any  perfectly  organized 
act,  and  all  eternity  of  the  complete  activity  of 
which  any  act  is  a  relational  part  The  con- 
scious self,  furthermore,  always  has  a  past  and 
a  future,  for  the  simple  reason  that  by  dint  of 
its  consciousness,  by  dint  of  the  tension  of  its 
organic  activity,  it  is  always  identifying  itself 
with  some  single  partial  phase  of  its  life  instead 
of  with  the  whole ;  but  nevertheless  the  whole 
is  always  active,  and  both  past  and  future 
accordingly  are   real   in  the   present.     Experi- 


TIME.  151 

mentalists  have  limited  the  present  of  con- 
sciousness to  a  few  seconds,  because  they  have 
limited  the  self  to  some  very  simple  separate 
activity. 

The  statement,  made  above,  that  the  absolute 
now  is  the  present  of  a  perfectly  organized  activ- 
ity leads  directly  to  the  paradoxes  about  an 
empty  time  and  a  filled  time.  An  organized 
activity,  wherein  means  and  end  are  become 
so  perfectly  adjusted  as  to  have  realized  their 
identity,  the  end  seeming  no  longer  external  to 
the  means  but  fulfilment  of  them,  may  be  viewed 
in  two  ways,  —  either  from  the  standpoint  of  one 
of  the  many  minor  component  activities,  or  from 
the  standpoint  of  the  single  whole  as  an  undi- 
vided and  henceforth  indivisible  activity;  and, 
if  from  the  former,  it  will  be  in  a  filled  time, 
while  from  the  latter  it  will  be  in  an  empty  time. 
Thus,  again,  time  is  filled,  and  then  timeless, 
when  everything  to  be  done  is  being  done ;  and 
empty,  and  then  not  time,  when  there  is  nothing 
further  to  be  done.  The  state  of  the  skilful  work- 
man, unhesitatingly  pursuing  some  goal,  doing 
now  this  thing,  now  that,  but  knowing  intuitively 
the  relation  of  every  act  to  every  other,  illus- 
trates the  first  case;  and  the  state  of  rest,  of 
sound  sleep,  fairly  illustrates  the  second.  Free 
activity,  in  fine,  both  as  an  acquisition  and  as 


152  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

an  instinct,  quite  transcends  the  distinctions  of 
time-duration. 

The  returned  wanderer,  so  often  appealed  to 
for  illustration  of  the  nature  of  the  time-con- 
sciousness, looks  at  his  old  home,  not  seen  for 
years,  and  exclaims,  "  But  yesterday  I  was  a 
careless  boy  among  these  hills ; "  and  then, 
after  reflecting  a  little,  recalling  what  has  inter- 
vened, "  What  long,  long  years  have  passed 
away  since  I  left  this  quiet,  simple  home !  " 
The  time  is  as  nothing,  until  the  events  crowd 
in  one  after  another,  and  then  it  lengthens  into 
years,  its  length  being  a  sort  of  measure  of  the 
contrast  between  the  old  state  and  the  new. 
But,  finally,  reflection  reaches  a  third  stage, 
and  we  hear  the  wanderer  exclaim :  "  And 
yet,  though  different,  I  am,  after  all,  the  same. 
Throughout,  my  life  has  been  but  one  life.  The 
boy  I  was  then  I  am  now.  Time  only  fulfils, 
it  does  not  change.  Past  and  future  are  but  one 
abiding  present."  For  the  wanderer,  as  for  our 
science,  an  empty  time  and  a  filled  time  are 
timeless,  and  past  and  future  are  always  in  the 
present. 

Time  as  filled  is  a  time  in  which  all  the  con- 
tained events  are  so  fully  organized  or  related 
as  to  be  the  immediate  incidents  of  a  single 
life   or  a   single   activity;    and,  now  to   touch 


TIME.  153 

briefly  upon  the  fourth  paradox,  the  study  of 
history  or  of  any  process  or  evolution  is  fairly 
describable  as  a  time-filling  pursuit,  the  many 
discovered  events  being  made  only  the  related 
parts  of  one  event.  Until  the  filling  is  accom- 
plished, until  the  many  are  seen  as  one,  the 
history  or  process  is  a  broken  series,  with  past, 
present,  and  future  more  or  less  isolated  from 
each  other;  but  so  soon  as  the  filling  or  the 
unification  is  complete,  so  soon,  in  short,  as  the 
series  is  explained,  there  seems  to  be  no  his- 
tory. Of  course,  were  the  studied  series  ever 
literally  broken  and  composite,  being  without 
any  relating  unity,  there  could  be  no  student 
of  it,  no  historian;  and,  as  for  our  own  day, 
historians  and  evolutionists  appear  to  be  hav- 
ing the  very  rich  concluding  experience  of  the 
returned  wanderer,  for  whom  past  and  future 
disappeared  in  an  all-containing  present. 

Furthermore,  to  approach  the  fact  before  us 
from  a  somewhat  different  point  of  view,  as  a 
history  completes  itself,  reaching  its  final  ex- 
planation, the  sequence  of  its  events  is  found 
to  have  complete  expression  in  the  different 
coexisting  phenomena  of  the  present.  The 
stages,  so  long  referred  to  the  past,  as  they  are 
seen  more  deeply,  —  that  is,  with  reference  to 
what  is  real  or  essential  in  them,  —  prove  to  be 


154  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

but  actual  phases  of  the  present,  the  life  seen  in 
history  to  be  but  the  fuller  life  of  the  present. 
Biology,  as  if  finding  a  material  expression  of 
this  truth,  has  had  a  doctrine  of  recapitulation, 
wherein  a  present  form  is  seen  to  pass  through 
many,  if  not  all,  of  the  stages  of  its  evolution. 
Still  this  special  doctrine  only  partially  or  dis- 
tantly illustrates  the  principle  here  in  question, 
for  biological  recapitulation  is  neither  complete 
nor  literal.  Perfect  illustration  could  be  only 
where  the  recapitulated  stages  were  absolutely 
coexistent,  since,  if  itself  seen  in  time,  the 
recapitulation  cannot  possibly  appear  literal. 
Only  as  we  view  an  organism  for  what  it  now 
is,  not  for  the  different  things  it  has  been,  can 
we  find  it  literally  a  fulfilment  of  the  past. 

In  the  prevalent  conviction  that  what  first 
was  is  now  and  is  the  very  essence,  the  organiz- 
ing principle,  of  the  present,  we  have  a  hint  of 
what  time  must  be.  One's  remotest  past  is  only 
one's  deepest  nature  now,  and  the  many  monu- 
ments of  one's  past,  fully  interpreted,  properly 
related,  are  the  manifold  aspects  of  one's  pres- 
ent. "  The  history  of  all  things,  that  am  I," 
the  thinker  has  sooner  or  later  to  say;  "its 
stages  mediate  my  life  to-day." 

Mathematics,  in  its  doctrine  of  motion,  in  its 
formulae  descriptive  of  motion,  really  identifies 


TIME.  155 

sequences  and  coexistences.  It  gets  at  the 
identification,  to  be  sure,  through  reducing 
time,  which  is  pure  sequence,  and  space,  which 
is  pure  coexistence,  to  infinites  or  infinitesimals, 
in  which  motion  is  also  rest;  but  these  useful 
conceptions  of  mathematics  are  only  hypotheti- 
cal quantities,  or  quantitative  abstractions,  for 
relationship  or  organic  character,  and  within  the 
organic  change  is  also  permanence,  or  sequence 
is  coexistence.  The  mathematician's  infinity, 
then,  is  at  bottom  a  case  of  organic  recapitula- 
tion ;  and  parenthetically,  to  connect  the  present 
with  the  past  of  this  book,  recapitulation  means 
both  original  life,  or  original  adjustment,  and 
immortality.  The  self  that  is,  both  was  and 
will  be. 

So,  now  to  repeat,  with  a  view  to  the  evidence 
of  the  four  paradoxes  and  of  what  has  been 
said  in  the  discussion  of  them,  time  is  essentially 
dynamic,  being  not  a  form  of  life  or  of  con- 
sciousness, but  a  vital,  organic  incident  of  it. 
Time  is  something  used  in  organic  life,  not 
something  in  which  organisms  live.  It  is  the 
relational  in  so  far  as  this  involves  unrest, 
change,  difference.  And,  in  conclusion,  that 
time  is  inseparable  from  space  has  been  indi- 
cated in  the  identity  of  the  present  and  the 
coexistent.     Space  is  the  coexistent,  or  the  re- 


156  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

lational  as  abiding  and  homogeneous.  The 
sequent  and  the  coexistent,  however,  the  chang- 
ing and  the  abiding,  are  one,  even  as  sub- 
ject and  object,  or  part  and  whole,  are  one. 
Or,  again,  the  unity  of  space  and  time  is  shown 
in  the  fact  that  each  is  in  itself  an  abstraction 
for  something  in  the  other.  Thus,  space  were 
not  space  without  motion,  and  time  were  not 
time  without  rest;  and  time  is  an  abstraction 
for  motion,  space  for  rest.  The  mathematician, 
already  appealed  to,  goes  a  long  way  toward 
showing  what  space  and  time  both  are,  when 
he  gets  his  concept  of  force,  or  at  least  of 
mechanical  movement,  from  their  identity.  As 
space  is  the  present  of  time,  so  time  is  the  else- 
where of  space;  and  both,  simply  because  of 
this  interdependence,  are  in  themselves  rela- 
tional, dynamic,  inseparable  from  the  things  in 
them,  intrinsic  to  the  changing  permanence, 
or  moving  rest  of  the  organic.1 

1  It  would  be  interesting  to  apply  the  doctrine  of  time  here 
presented  to  the  problems  of  memory  and  retention.  Plainly 
memory  cannot  be  of  the  past  for  itself  alone,  of  the  past  as 
literally  past,  for  memory  cannot  possibly  be  an  isolated 
faculty  of  mind ;  and  retention  cannot  be  explained  by  any 
storehouse  theory  of  mind,  or  by  any*  hypothesis  of  scars  on 
the  brain,  or  of  habits  of  repetition,  or  of  an  all-powerful  un- 
consciousness back  of  consciousness.  What  memory  and  re- 
tention are,  however,  cannot  be  discussed  here  at  any  length. 
Only  it  is  plain  that  their  nature  is  very  definitely  implied  in 


TIME.  157 

that  of  change  and  time.  That  which  changes  also  always  is  ; 
and  memory,  accordingly,  coming  in  the  wake  of  change,  must 
be  as  much  of  the  present  as  of  the  past,  or  let  us  say  that  it 
must  be  of  the  past  made  contemporary.  The  fact  already 
casually  referred  to,  of  memory's  dependence  on  present  con- 
ditions, is  all  that  the  psychologist  needs  for  the  basis  of  a 
theory,  if  he  will  only  remember  that  those  present  conditions 
are  only  relational  parts  of  a  whole.  And,  as  to  retention,  in 
that  changing  thing  which  also  abides  both  the  forgotten  past 
can  be  recalled  and  the  unseen  future  can  be  revealed.  Both 
the  recall  and  the  revelation  will  be  as  natural  as  the  change 
itself.    What  the  change  needs  will  come  of  itself. 


CHAPTER   XIII. 

a   summary:   dynamic   vs.   formal  idealism. 

PERHAPS  a  summary  in  this  place  is  un- 
necessary, but  aside  from  its  possible 
value  to  somebody  there  are  certain  points  in 
the  foregoing  that  may  well  be  emphasized  by 
repetition,  and  others  that  having  been  given  no 
direct  recognition  can  now  be  made  explicit. 

The  simple  statement  that  ideas  are  not 
forms  but  forces  is  a  statement  that  in  itself 
summarizes  all  that  has  been  said ;  but  involved 
in  it  are  many  other  not-bnts}  which  I  would 
bring  together  here,  passing  some  with  mention 
only,  and  in  regard  to  others  even  adding  a 
greater  or  less  amount  to  the  expositions 
already  given.  The  many  different  phases,  psy- 
chological, physiological,  sociological,  and 
even  theological,  of  the   opposition   between 

1  For  this  coined  word  I  offer  my  apologies.  No  doubt 
others  will  fail  to  find  its  use  justified  by  the  fact  that  I  have 
imagined  it  very  apt,  but  I  let  it  stand.  It  seems  apt  to  me, 
not  only  as  a  name  of  a  form  of  sentence,  but  also  as  a  sign 
of  an  attitude  of  mind  valuable  to  the  development  of  thought. 
It  faces  the  fact  of  the  dependence  of  thought  on  negation. 


DYNAMIC  vs.  FORMAL  IDEALISM.        1 59 

Formal  Idealism  and  Dynamic  Idealism  cer- 
tainly ought  to  be  seen  clearly  and  so  far  as 
possible  all  at  once.     So,  to  begin :  — 

{a)  Matter  and  mind  are  not  two  but  one, 
mind  being  the  relationship  or  the  relating 
activity  in  matter.  Indeed,  as  was  said  re- 
cently of  space  and  time,  each  of  the  two  is  only 
an  abstraction  for  something  essential  in  the 
other.  Matter  as  organic  is  intelligent,  and 
mind  as  dynamic  is  material  or  substantial. 
Under  Dualism  or  Formalism,  which  is  dual- 
ist ic,  matter  cannot  be  essentially  organic  nor 
mind  naturally  active  or  executive. 

(b)  Soul,  the  spiritual  as  distinct  both  from 
the  physical  and  from  the  rational  self,  is 
neither  the  negation  of  body  nor  the  negation 
of  mind,  but  the  fulfilling  organic  activity,  or 
the  substance,  in  which  an  organic  matter  and 
a  dynamic  mind  are  one.  Matter,  then,  has 
soul,  because  not  formally  but  actually  rela- 
tional ;  and  mind  has  soul,  because  not  arbitra- 
rily but  responsibly  or  naturally  executive. 

(c)  Immortality  is  not  a  life  yonder  in  an 
hereafter,  but  the  life  here  and  now.  Individ- 
uality survives  decomposition  because  it  is  not 
involved  in  a  unity  of  the  merely  composite, 
but  in  relationship,  which  is  substantial. 

(d)  Adjustment,  which  may  fairly  be  taken 


160  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

as  a  biological  term  for  the  life  hereafter,  is 
not  acquired  but  original,  environment  being 
natural,  not  alien,  and  the  self  or  organism 
related,  not  isolated.  The  inheritance,  too, 
involved  in  adjustment,  is  not  literal  but  rela- 
tional; and  the  habit,  not  mere  repetition  but 
organic  expression.  Of  course,  as  the  terms 
are  commonly  used,  inheritance  expresses  the 
parent's  adjustment  in  the  offspring,  and  habit 
in  the  parent's  own  life;  but  the  difference  is 
essential  only  if  one  finds  individuality  in  mere 
physical  or  bodily  limitations.  For  the  or- 
ganic whole  to  whose  life  parent  and  offspring 
alike  owe  their  individuality,  inheritance  and 
habit  are  one. 

(e)  The  self  is  not  a  localized  entity,  in  but 
not  of  the  body,  but  a  functional  activity. 
Whether  we  think  of  the  self  as  soul  or  as  mind, 
its  localization  in  the  brain  or  in  any  other 
part  is  unthinkable.  The  character  alone  of 
the  so-called  sensuous  consciousness,  which  can 
no  longer  be  confined  to  special  organs,  is 
hostile  to  localization.  Dualism,  however,  re- 
quires localization.  Dualism  leads  to  a  mo- 
narchical despotism  in  the  relation  of  the  parts 
of  the  body,  as  well  as  in  the  relation  of  the 
parts  of  society.  This  social  analogy,  too,  may 
be  carried  even  farther,  since  in  the  still  dual- 


DYNAMIC  vs.  FORMAL  IDEALISM.        l6l 

istic  hypothesis  of  separate  sense-organs  or 
of  "  idea-centres "  or  little  brains  existing  in 
different  parts  of  the  body,  a  psychological  feu- 
dalism is  presented.  Idealism  and  Materialism 
have  had  their  different  ways  of  expressing 
feudalism,  but  both  have  expressed  it.  While 
one  has  thought  of  the  brain  and  the  subor- 
dinate ganglia  as  mere  temporal  thrones  from 
which  both  an  intellectual  and  a  spiritual 
authority  were  exercised,  the  other  has  thought 
of  them  as  generating  a  peculiar  force,  or  in 
interpreting  the  "  reactions  "  of  the  body  has 
treated  them  as  arbitrary,  or  has,  in  other  words, 
regarded  the  reactive  effects  as  external  results 
of  the  causes.  "Peculiar  force,"  however,  and 
"  temporally  enthroned  authority "  mean  the 
same  thing. 

(/)  The  mental  faculties  are  not  many  but 
one.  Not  to  touch  upon  other  divisions  of 
the  mind,  it  is  still  the  fashion  to  separate 
thought  and  sensation,  the  former  being  mind 
as  self-conscious  or  the  consciousness  of  ideas, 
and  the  latter  being  mind  as  conscious  of  the 
not-self,  being  so  to  speak  a  mere  conscious- 
ness of  matter.  But  the  Law  of  Relativity, 
without  other  help,  destroys  this  dualism  at  a 
stroke. 

{g)  Ideas  are  not  innate,  but  actually,  vitally 
ii 


1 62  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

mediative.  Formal  ideas,  the  ideas  of  a  sepa- 
rate, immaterial  mind,  could  not  but  be  innate ; 
given  to  experience  instead  of  belonging  to  it. 
Also,  as  indicated  now  so  many  times,  innate 
ideas,  or  formal  ideas,  are  naturally  expressed 
in  a  lifeless  medium,  a  dead  language;  and 
under  the  dualistic  position  both  thought  and 
sensation  are  of  given  or  eternally  fixed  ideas 
expressed  in  a  non-mediative  because  alien 
medium.  Matter,  of  course,  is  the  alien 
medium  of  sensation.  John  Locke's  sensations 
as  "simple  ideas,"  although  set  up  against 
Descartes'  innate  ideas,  in  being  given,  fixed, 
and  evident-of-an-wholly-external-something 
were  as  innate  as  ideas  ever  could  be.  Even 
abstract  materialism  is  nativistic,  for  in  its 
notions  of  space  and  time  and  force  and  matter 
it  subjects  the  changes  of  natural  life  to  certain 
external  forms.  Relationism,  however,  knows 
no  ideas  which  are  not  vitally  mediative,  or 
the  medium  of  whose  expression  is  not  itself 
alive.  For  Relationism  ideas  are  not  enslaving 
forms,  but  liberating  plans;  their  truth  being 
of  the  kind  that  really  sets  you  free. 

(k)  Consciousness  is  never  epiphenomenal, 
but,  even  like  the  ideas  belonging  to  it,  always 
mediative;  never  merely  ornamental,  but  always 
useful.     This  not-but  is  only  a  repetition  of  the 


DYNAMIC  vs.   FORMAL  IDEALISM.        163 

one  preceding  it,  but  by  its  particular  form  it 
leads  to  several  considerations  of  importance. 
That  under  Dualism  consciousness  must  be  epi- 
phenomenal  is  now  an  old  story;  but  certain 
comparative  psychologists,  as  if  holding  too 
literally  to  the  old  definition  of  man  as  a 
rational  being,  have  saved  to  man  a  mediative 
consciousness,  but  condemned  the  animals, 
which  are  said  to  be  wholly  creatures  of  sense, 
to  an  epiphenomenal  consciousness.  They 
have,  then,  made  man's  reason  mediative  by 
making  man  himself  an  epiphenomenon  in  the 
world.  But  in  this  procedure  they  are  han- 
dling a  boomerang.  Only  men,  they  contend, 
know  relations,  while  animals  know  only  things ; 
but,  in  point  of  fact,  things  are  relations,  and 
there  is  no  such  knowledge  of  relations  as  they 
would  have.  Relations  are  actual,  not  formal. 
(i)  Self-consciousness  is  not  of  any  subjec- 
tive entity,  of  any  separate  self-hood,  but  of  the 
living  medium  of  the  self's  expression.  In  other 
words,  that  which  actually  mediates,  which  at 
the  time  is  mediating  one's  expression,  gives  the 
only  self-consciousness  possible,  the  ultimate 
self  being  no  mere  object  of  consciousness  at 
all,  but  the  realizing  mediated  act.  Two  special 
theories  in  technical  psychology,  the  Innerva- 
tion Theory  and  the  Afferent  Theory,  have  both 


1 64  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

of  them,  although  from  opposite  standpoints, 
made  self-consciousness  a  consciousness  of  some- 
thing other  than  the  medium.  Thus  the  former 
has  thought  of  the  self  as  consciously  felt  before, 
and  the  latter  as  consciously  felt  after,  activity.1 
Such  an  epiphenomenal  self-consciousness,  how- 
ever, is  not  to  be  thought  of  here.  Self-con- 
sciousness is  neither  before  nor  after,  but  in 
activity. 

(J)  The  individual  is  not  physically  a  mere 
medium  of  natural  force,  and  spiritually  the  seat 
of  an  wholly  arbitrary  will,  but  is  in  himself  at 
once  a  defined  force  and  a  responsible  will ;  in 
sociological  terms,  not  a  soldier,  whether  to 
command  or  to  obey,  but  a  mechanic,  skilful 
by  nature,  the  world  about  him  being  always  as 
a  tool  already  in  his  adapted  hands,  or  say  as 
Spinoza's  hammer,  never  to  be  made,  because 
original,  but  ever  to  be  improved  in  use.  And 
society  is  an  organism  of  individuals,  not  a  com- 
munity of  souls,  nor  yet  a  mere  mechanism  of 
bodies.  Relationism,  in  short,  —  that  is  to  say, 
Dynamic  Idealism, —  does  away  with  the  military 
or  wholly  utilitarian  interest  of  an  individual  in 
his  fellows,  or  of  a  particular  people  in  its  neigh- 
bors, or  of  the  civilized  races  in  the  uncivilized, 
or  of  man  in  the  kingdom  of  animals,  or  even  of 
1  See  also  pp.  210  ff. 


DYNAMIC  vs.   FORMAL  IDEALISM.         1 65 

any  living  creature  in  its  material  environment ; 
and  this,  simply  because  it  finds  the  mediation 
of  life  always  to  be  through  no  dead  external 
mechanism,  but  always  through  a  living  media- 
tor, an  organically  inclusive  life,  which  to  the 
physical  and  biological  sciences  is  known  as 
nature,  to  political  philosophy  as  the  state,  and 
to  theology  as  God. 

And  here  this  summary,  although  only  par- 
tial, must  come  to  an  end.  Yet  be  it  hoped 
that  enough  has  been  said  to  show  still  more 
clearly  than  before  at  once  the  deeper  tenden- 
cies of  modern  thought  and  the  important 
results  of  these  to  modern  life.  Not-bnts,  more- 
over, will  arise  in  number  and  in  strength, 
through  the  chapters  that  follow  this ;  and  as 
they  come  they  will  only  keep  us  in  mind  of 
the  simple  fact  that  for  the  thinker  as  well  as 
for  the  laborer  the  past,  which  is  formal,  is  but 
the  tool  of  the  present,  which  is  dynamic,  in  the 
realization  of  the  ever-pressing  future. 


CHAPTER    XIV. 

CONSCIOUSNESS   AS   INTEREST. 

THE  completed  chapters  of  this  second  part 
have  all  of  them  served  to  define  the 
view,  with  which  we  started,  that  consciousness 
was  the  essential  tension  of  a  system  of  actual 
relations.  Thus,  consciousness  was  said  to  be 
the  tension  of  the  adjustment,  that  is,  the  in- 
teraction of  the  relational  parts  of  an  organic 
whole ;  and  notably  in  the  chapters  on  ideas  as 
forces,  on  the  relation  of  mind  to  body  and 
soul,  and  on  time,  this  view  found  strong  cor- 
roboration. But  technical  psychology  has  had 
several  terms  for  the  dynamic  phase  of  con- 
sciousness, and  about  these  terms  numerous 
special  theories,  to  which  some  attention  is 
due,  have  grouped  themselves.  The  terms  in 
question,  or  the  most  important  of  them,  are 
feeling  (or  emotion),  attention,  and  interest ;  and 
in  psychological  theory,  as  well  as  in  every-day 
usage,  these  three  terms  have  often  been  very 
strangely  distinguished.  Interest,  for  example, 
by  some  writers  has  been  completely  divorced 


CONSCIOUSNESS  AS  INTEREST.  1 67 

from  both  feeling  and  attention,  although  such 
a  divorce  upon  examination  will  be  found  to 
be  impossible. 

In  the  first  place,  interest  and  feeling  have 
been  divorced  by  the  exaltation  of  the  latter 
into  a  faculty  quite  by  itself.  Feeling  as  such 
has  been  given  a  worth  wholly  its  own.  It  has 
been  regarded  as  a  purely  subjective  state, 
which  is  both  naturally  had  independently  of 
any  experience  of  an  outer  world  and  prop- 
erly cultivated  for  its  own  peculiar  sake,  while 
interest  has  been  objective,  mind  being  im- 
agined capable  of  interesting  itself  in  things 
for  which  it  has  no  feeling.  Interest,  then, 
has  been  a  consciousness  of  things  wholly  ex- 
ternal; and  feeling,  an  interest  in  an  wholly 
unrelated  self. 

That  the  courting  of  mere  feeling  in  social 
life  and  even  in  education  is  very  common 
indeed,  any  one  who  is  willing  to  look  can  see 
clearly ;  but  equally  evident  is  the  fact  that 
mere  "  subjective "  feeling,  feeling  with  a 
worth  all  its  own,  is,  after  all,  not  subjective, 
being  objective  or  external  even  to  the  point 
of  determinism.  Schleiermacher,  bent  on  re- 
ducing religion  to  mere  feeling,  was  quite  right 
in  concluding  that  religion  was  a  condition  of 
absolute  dependence ;  and   popular  usage  also 


1 68  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

has  been  right  in  applying  the  term  not  only 
to  a  purely  subjective  condition,  but  also  to  an 
altogether  objective  sensation.  There  is  also 
a  deal  of  light  to  be  had  upon  the  nature  of 
feeling  in  the  circumstance  that,  as  the  term 
has  been  used,  feeling  is  exclusively  of  either 
the  soul  or  the  body.  The  mind,  wholly  de- 
void of  feeling,  only  knows.  But  the  soul's 
feeling  and  the  body's  feeling,  in  spite  of  the 
supposed  opposition  between  these  parts  of  the 
self,  are  at  least  in  practice  one  and  the  same, 
whatever  they  may  be  in  theory.  Hegel  criti- 
cised Schleiermacher  by  saying  that  he  made 
beasts  as  religious  as  men ;  and  in  human  his- 
tory this  criticism  has  certainly  been  justified, 
for  the  cultivation  of  emotions,  moral  or  re- 
ligious, merely  for  the  emotions'  sake,  has 
always  been  attended  by  extreme  sensuality, 
the  emotion  proving  to  be  only  a  sort  of  spirit- 
ual abstraction  for  bodily  sensation.  So  it 
appears  both  from  the  virtual  objectivity  of 
merely  subjective  feeling  and  from  the  double 
use  of  the  term  "  feeling  "  that  the  two,  feeling 
and  interest,  are  essentially  one.  As  of  other 
opposites  that  have  come  up  for  our  attention, 
each  is  but  an  abstraction  for  something  in  the 
other. 

In  practical  affairs  the  divorce  of  subjective 


CONSCIOUSNESS  AS  INTEREST.  1 69 

feeling  and  objective  interest  shows  itself  in  the 
assumption  that  you  can  interest  a  man  in  his 
work  solely  by  paying  him  for  it,  a  Christian  in 
his  duty  solely  by  the  promise  of  happiness 
in  an  abstract  hereafter,  a  scholar  in  his  studies 
by  honors  or  prizes  or  athletic  contests,  or,  the 
money  and  the  promises  and  the  prizes  failing, 
by  their  complementary  methods,  —  tortures, 
threats,  fines,  disgraces.  Rewards  or  punish- 
ments cast  over  an  uninteresting  thing  the 
cloud  of  sentiment,  so  that,  with  plenty  of 
means  to  reward  or  punish,  plenty  of  assurance 
to  promise  or  threaten,  one  has  little  if  any 
need  of  interesting.  With  an  honor-roll  one 
can  be  a  "  successful "  teacher ;  with  a  well- 
filled  purse,  a  power  in  society ;  and  with  mere 
avowals  of  allegiance  to  creeds  and  social  con- 
ventions generally,  a  model  for  one's  fellows. 
But,  unfortunately  for  the  assumption  on  which 
such  successes  as  these  are  founded,  the  special 
charm  in  any  case  very  soon  ceases  to  work,  or 
is  found  to  work  in  a  way  not  for  a  moment 
intended.  Whoever  labors  for  money  only  is 
bound  in  time  to  cheat  his  employer.  The 
Christian  who  knows  only  the  Future  is  really 
unfaithful  to  the  present.  The  student  whose 
goal  you  make  honor  or  display  blames  you 
in   time   for   his   failure.      The    model   for   his 


170  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

fellows  has  a  fall.  Simply,  then,  in  the  Bible's 
way  of  putting  it,  "  You  cannot  serve  God  and 
mammon ;  "  feeling  and  interest  assert  their 
identity,  or  dependence,  even  when  they  seem 
to  have  been  most  thoroughly  divorced. 

The  speculator  in  psychology  has  had  two 
ways,  apparently  opposite,  of  separating  interest 
from  feeling.  Either  he  has  held  that  feeling 
comes  temporally  before  objective  interest, — 
that  is,  before  experience  or  expression,  —  or  he 
has,  strangely  enough,  reversed  the  temporal 
order  of  the  two.  In  regard,  then,  to  the  former 
of  these  positions,  the  meaning  is,  to  take  a  con- 
crete case,  that  the  emotion  of  wit  precedes  the 
witty  saying,  or  again  that  sadness  as  an  emotion 
comes  before  sadness  as  a  condition,  a  man 
being  sad  before  his  trouble  in  any  way  shows 
itself,  or  that  the  feeling  of  doing  right  is  ante- 
cedent to  right  doing,  or  finally,  to  revert  to  an 
illustration  used  above,  that  a  workman  has  a 
natural  right  to  the  desired  money  before  he 
has  really  earned  it.  Wit,  however,  on  this 
plan  always  falls  flat;  the  sadness  is  only  a 
courted,  albeit  a  morbidly  courted,  pleasure; 
the  right  doing  never  comes  ;  and  the  workman 
turns  beggar.  Hence,  naturally,  the  other 
theory,  which  is  only  a  reaction,  and  which  like 
any  reaction  fails  to  escape  the  spell  of  what  it 


CONSCIOUSNESS  AS  INTEREST.  IJl 

opposes.  Thus,  to  adopt  another's  character- 
ization of  this  second  theory,  a  man,  instead  of 
weeping  after  he  has  found  himself  sad,  is  sad 
after  finding  himself  weeping.  If,  then,  the 
original  theory  disposes  of  the  need  of  expres- 
sion, the  reaction,  although  seeming  to  make 
expression  necessary,  gives  it  no  meaning  or 
purpose  of  its  own.  A  student,  for  example, 
may  find  that  what  knowledge  he  has  is  of 
worth,  but  he  will  never  seek  knowledge ;  and 
the  workman,  after  plodding  aimlessly  at  his 
job,  may  sometimes  discover  that  the  work  is 
lucrative,  but  he  will  never  work  for  a  return. 
And  Andromache's  attending  maidens,  who  wept 
so  freely  at  the  departure  of  the  noble  Hector, 
must  have  found  that  they,  too,  had  sorrows 
only  after  their  tears  had  begun  to  flow.  As 
Homer  himself  put  it,  "  And  the  beautiful 
Andromache  wept  bitterly  at  the  going  of  her 
noble  lord  Hector,  and  the  maidens  attend- 
ing her  wept  too,  but  each  one  for  her  own 
sorrows." 

Or  can  we  dare  to  suppose  that  the  weeping 
maidens  were  sad  with  Andromache?  Can  we 
even  imagine  that  knowledge  is  not  more  in 
knowledge  itself  than  in  the  getting  of  it?  Cer- 
tainly, as  between  the  two  theories,  with  their 
contradictory    ways    of   saying   essentially  the 


172  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

same  thing,  some  such  conclusion  is  not  unnat- 
ural. Thus,  it  makes  no  real  difference  whether 
you  tell  a  man  that  the  return  for  his  labor  is 
originally  or  naturally  his  anyway,  or  that  the 
labor  for  which  he  is  paid  is  only  some  physical, 
wholly  mechanical  process,  with  which  emotion- 
ally he  has  nothing  to  do ;  and,  again,  it  makes 
no  real  difference  whether  you  say  in  general 
that  mankind  has  no  natural  need  of  doing  any- 
thing, pleasant  or  unpleasant,  or  that  what  man- 
kind does  engage  in  is  not  of  its  doing  at  all ; 
and,  in  view  of  such  an  indifference,  the  con- 
clusion is  that  the  separated  things  must  after 
all  in  some  way  be  identical  and  inseparable,  or 
more  specifically  that  the  emotion  that  can  be 
either  before  or  after  expression  indifferently 
must  in  reality  belong  to  expression. 

Just  as  subject  and  object  are  one,  so  are 
feeling  and  interest  one.  Motive  and  stimulus 
have  sometimes  been  separated  in  the  same  way, 
but  stimulation  is  obviously  impossible  if  it  does 
not  answer  to,  or  find  sympathy  in,  subjective 
motive.  Outer  stimulus  is  necessarily  also  inner 
motive.  Motive  is  not  less  objective  than  sub- 
jective. Strange  is  it,  indeed,  that  men  should 
ever  imagine  that  what  starts  activity  can  be 
distinct  from  what  afterwards  controls  it,  or  that 
feeling  and  interest  should  be  two,  not  one. 


CONSCIOUSNESS  AS  INTEREST.  173 

But,  furthermore,  in  regard  to  attention  the 
same  psychology  that  has  put  emotion  before 
condition  has  also  put  attention  before  its  object, 
and  the  same  psychology  that  has  put  emotion 
after  condition  has  also  put  attention  after  its 
object.  Attention,  however,  if  before,  is  arbi- 
trary; and,  if  after,  compulsory.  But  the  ab- 
surdity here  is  even  more  striking  than  above. 
Forsooth,  did  anybody  ever  attend  to  anything 
before  being  conscious  of  it?  Or  did  anybody 
ever  withhold  attention  until  consciousness  had 
defined  itself?  Education,  of  course,  has  put  the 
absurdity  of  an  arbitrary  or  compulsory  atten- 
tion in  practice,  just  as  it  has  practised  that  of 
the  antecedent  or  subsequent  emotion,  but  the 
results  have  been  far  from  justifying  the  method. 
The  habit  in  education  of  requiring  transitions 
from  one  subject  to  another  without  any  living 
indication  of  a  connection  between  them,  the 
habit,  in  short,  of  having  a  loosely  composite, 
instead  of  an  organic  curriculum,1  has  not  pro- 
duced thinkers,  because  it  has  not  succeeded  in 
turning  attention  in  the  necessary  way ;  it  has, 
in  general,  produced  only  conventionalists,  or, 
as  they  were  styled  before,  "  intellectual  sui- 
cides."   Both  the  theory  and  the  practice  of  atten- 

1  Of  course  a  prescribed  curriculum  must  always  be  "  loosely 
composite,"  for  a  large  majority,  if  not  for  all. 


174  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

tion,  however,  may  be  left  here,  since  it  is  really 
altogether  evident  that,  just  as  feeling  must  be 
in  and  of  expression,  so  attention  can  be  only 
to  what  already  occupies  attention;  and  with 
more  profit  we  shall  for  a  moment  concern 
ourselves  with  certain  implied  doctrines  of 
association. 

An  arbitrary  or  compulsory  attention,  an 
attention  that  is  independent  of  interest,  involves 
a  natural  separation  or  division  in  the  sphere  of 
objects  or  interests.  No  object,  in  other  words, 
can  be  supposed  to  have  in  itself  the  reason  for 
a  transition  of  attention  to  some  other.  The 
association  of  objects,  then,  can  take  place  only 
through  some  wholly  external  bond.  By  all 
the  rights  of  logic,  arbitrary  or  separate  atten- 
tion, unrelated  objects  of  attention,  and  external 
association  belong  together.  Then  to  the  doc- 
trines of  attention  here  in  question  belong  those 
of  association  by  similarity  and  by  contiguity, 
since  both  similarity  and  contiguity  are  external 
to  the  associated  things.  The  common  charac- 
ter, on  which  similarity  depends,  is  wholly  ab- 
stract or  external  to  the  individual  objects  united 
by  it,  and  contiguity  is  a  matter  only  of  the 
formal  space  in  which  objects  are  found,  not  of 
the  objects  themselves. 

But  common  characters,  that  is  to  say,  formal 


CONSCIOUSNESS  AS  INTEREST.  1 75 

ideas,  and  a  formal  space  we  have  found  to  have 
no  place  in  more  recent  theory.     Ideas  are  dy- 
namic,  things   being   relational;   and   space   is 
force.     But  some  one  declares,  "  A  round  coin 
certainly   reminds    me    of    the   moon."      Well, 
perhaps  it   does,  but  not  solely  because   coin 
and  moon  are  round.     If  roundness  alone  as  a 
common    quality   made    the    association,    then 
surely  upon  the  coin   being  presented    all  the 
round  things  ever  seen  ought  to  flock  without 
order  or  relation  to  the  field  of  consciousness; 
but  it  is  needless  to  say  that  they  do  not.     Or, 
once  more,  some  one  says  that,  having  on  a  cer- 
tain day  seen  a  particular  man  in  the  post-office, 
he  thinks  of  the  man  a  week  later,  when  enter- 
ing the  office;   and   perhaps  he  does,  but  not 
from  mere  contiguity.     What   selects  the  man 
from  other  objects?     Surely  not  similarity  nor 
yet  contiguity,  but  a  mechanical    relationship, 
whereby  certain  things  have  been,  and  so  still 
are,  the  related  incidents  of  the  self's  activity, 
is  the  only  possible  mainspring  of  association. 
Association,  then,  is  by  a  mechanical  or  medi- 
ating, by  an  intrinsic  or  substantial,  relationship 
in  the  things  of  experience.     And   apart  from 
association  for  psychology,  what  but  this  is  true 
of  association  in  nature?    Chemistry  and  physics 
and  biology  can  hardly  believe  in  association 


176  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

by  formal  contiguity  or  by  abstract  similarity, 
unless  indeed  they  insist  on  still  holding  to  a 
real  material  atomism  and  to  a  dualism  between 
living  organism  and  physical  environment.1 

So,  in  review,  feeling  is  not  independent  of 
interest,  but  is  one  with  it;  attention  is  neither 
arbitrary  nor  compulsory,  but  natural  or  respon- 
sible, being  always  of  the  already  present  object 
of  attention;  and  association  is  not  imposed, 
but  original  or  intrinsic.  Interest,  therefore,  at 
once  subjective  and  objective,  at  once  inwardly 
motivating  and  outwardly  stimulating,  is  only 
the  impulse  to  self-expression  that  has  been 
seen  to  belong  to  the  very  nature  of  conscious- 
ness. In  point  of  fact,  it  is  the  expression  itself. 
As  said  before,  it  names  the  dynamic  character 
of  ideas  or  of  consciousness  generally.  One  of 
the  keener  thinkers  of  the  present  day  has  said 

1  Professor  James  (Psychology,  vol.  i.  p.  549)  has  gone  only 
half  of  the  way  to  the  view  of  association  here  briefly  outlined. 
Thus,  he  has  denied  any  such  thing  as  the  association  of  ideas, 
declaring  that  association  is  of  things ;  and  in  this  declaration 
he  is  plainly  only  a  reactionist,  as  also  for  the  most  part  in  his 
much  discussed  theory  of  emotion.  True,  association  is  not 
of  ideas,  because  consciousness  is  a  "stream"  or  only  one 
running  idea ;  but  true  also,  things  are  relational,  and  accord- 
ingly one,  not  many.  Only  if  things  were  many,  however, 
could  we  properly  speak  of  the  association  of  things.  Professor 
James,  however,  has  since  modified  the  views  of  his  Psychology 
considerably.  See  article  in  the  Psychological  Review,  1895, 
vol.  ii.  no.  2,  "  The  Knowing  of  Things  Together." 


CONSCIOUSNESS  AS  INTEREST.  1 77 

the  following  of  interest : 2  "  Interest  (1)  is  active, 
projective.  We  take  interest.  Interest  is  de- 
mand, insistence.  Whenever  we  have  an  inter- 
est in  any  thought  we  cherish  it,  cling  to  it, 
endeavor  in  all  ways  to  realize  or  fulfil  it.  In- 
terest (2)  implies  an  object,  —  the  end  or 
thought  which  claims  attention.  We  are  inter- 
ested in  something,  while  mere  feeling  [if  possible 
at  all]  begins  and  ends  in  itself.  In  common 
speech  an  '  interest  '  means  an  end  which 
dominates  activity.  Interest  (3)  implies  the 
relation  which  the  interesting  end  bears  to  the 
controlling  lines  of  activity,  to  character.  It 
expresses  the  identification  of  the  object  with 
the  subject."  Yes,  interest  is  character;  and 
with  Professor  Dewey's  clear  and  concise  state- 
ment this  chapter  may  very  properly  conclude, 
since  in  interest  as  character,  in  interest  as  the 
"identification  of  the  object  with  the  subject," 
an  identification  which  we  know  to  be  original, 
the  object  as  a  living  mediator,  or  as  language, 
is  once  more  set  before  us. 

1  The    Study  of    Ethics,  by  John  Dewey,  p.  55.     Register 
Publishing  Co.,  Ann  Arbor,  Mich.,  1894. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

THOUGHT  AND   LANGUAGE. 

IF  interest  names  the  dynamic  nature  of  con- 
sciousness from  the  standpoint  of  the  sub- 
ject, language  is,  to  say  the  least,  one  of  the 
terms  that  name  the  same  thing  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  object.  Interest,  as  a  state  of 
consciousness,  is  always  a  consciousness  of  lan- 
guage, while  as  an  object  it  is  itself  language ; 
or  language  in  its  turn  may  be  said  to  be  the 
identification  of  the  object  with  the  subject. 
Our  Relationism  or  Dynamic  Idealism  has  had 
no  choice  but  to  find  the  object  of  consciousness 
naturally,  essentially  linguistic.  But,  further- 
more, for  interest,  which  is  obviously  as  much 
an  activity  as  a  consciousness,  there  is  another 
term  that  may  now  be  used.  Interest,  from  the 
standpoint  of  ethics  describable  as  character,  is 
nothing  more  nor  less  than  thought,  from  the 
standpoint  of  psychology.  Thought,  which  is 
new  to  us  here  only  in  name,  is  the  activity 
that  language    mediates;    or,   with    equal    ac- 


THOUGHT  AND  LANGUAGE.  1 79 

curacy,  it  is    the  activity  that  fulfils   language 
as  language.1 

Now,  of  course,  throughout  these  pages  the 
term  "  language  "  has  been  given  a  very  broad 
meaning.  The  breadth,  however,  has  been  for 
the  sake  of  depth.  Thus,  the  essential  principle 
of  language  has  been  found  in  the  very  nature 
of  objectivity.  As  object,  or  environment,  or 
social  institution,  or  tool  in  use,  language  has 
been  found  to  be  peculiar  only  to  organic  life 
as  such,  not  to  the  life  of  human  beings.  En- 
vironment is  perhaps  the  best  of  all  the  syno- 
nyms, although  both  science  and  popular  usage 
have  co-operated  in  making  even  this  too  narrow 
in  its  meaning.  The  two  words,  however,  "  lan- 
guage "  and  "  environment,"  as  really  naming 
the  same  thing,  will  be  corrective  of  each  other. 
Besides,  the  more  reflective  biology  of  our  time 
is  ready  to  say  that  environment  is  essentially 
linguistic;  and,  as  we  know,  the  more  reflective 
psychology,  that  the  use  of  language  is  as  gen- 
eral and  as  far-reaching  as  relation  to  environ- 
ment. But  when  did  language  begin  ?  With 
the  beginning  of  organic  life?  Yes  and  no; 
since  language,  like  anything  else,  so  soon  as 

1  The  alternative  definition  is  given  here  simply  to  keep 
before  the  mind  the  important  fact  that  thought  and  language 
are  one,  each  as  taken  alone  being  only  an  abstraction  for 
something  in  the  other. 


180  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

it  is  understood  in  its  principle,  is  quite  beyond 
the  shallow  question  of  origin.  Organic  life 
can  know  no  formal,  merely  including  time, 
and  so  also  no  beginning  in  time.  And  here, 
too,  is  another  shallow  question:  Is  thought 
possible  without  language?  Without  mere 
words  of  the  ordinary  sort,  yes ;  but  certainly 
not  without  language,  not  without  environ- 
ment. Merely  to  live  is  to  use  language, 
and  life  is  thought.  Any  organic  form  both 
thinks  and  is  addicted  to  language,  whenever 
it  acts. 

The  view  of  sensation  that  we  were  led  to 
take  —  a  view  which  made  sensation  general,  or 
not  confined  to  special  organs  —  was  in  itself 
enough,  when  we  had  analyzed  it,  to  extend 
language  to  include  the  entire  realm  of  the 
objective ;  but  other  evidences  are  available  and 
may  now  be  cited.  Thus,  to  the  formal  gram- 
mar of  earlier  times  we  have  added  in  our  day, 
as  belonging  to  the  science  of  language,  the 
following  branches :  philology,  phonetics,  pho- 
nology, orthography,  and  even  others  in  kind; 
and  these  special  sciences,  by  explaining  lan- 
guage historically  or  geographically  or  physi- 
ologically or  psychologically,  at  once  bring  it  to 
a  level  with  other  things  similarly  explained,  and 
so  make  it  not  a  specific  thing,  peculiar  to  a  cer- 


THOUGHT  AND  LANGUAGE.  l8l 

tain  form  of  life  and  to  a  certain  part  of  that  form, 
but  an  altogether  general  thing.  Also,  if  we 
accept  the  view  that  any  medium  of  expression 
is  linguistic,  such  changes  in  education  as  the 
mere  introduction  into  courses  of  study  of 
the  physical  and  biological  branches  and  as  the 
employment  of  the  laboratory  method  and  the 
establishment  of  technical  schools,  and  such 
changes  in  more  directly  practical  affairs  as 
that  in  religion  from  church  and  book  to  home 
and  man,  and  that  in  civic  life  from  no  diversion 
for  the  people  beyond  verbal  direction  of  all 
kinds  to  diversion  through  open  museums  and 
public  parks,  show  that  language  is  getting  to  be, 
not  only  in  theory  but  also  in  practice,  a  very 
general  affair.  In  a  sense,  that  is  certainly  not 
the  inalienable  right  of  poetry,  the  great  park 
systems  of  our  modern  cities  are  a  means  of 
bringing  men  and  natural  creatures  all  into 
communion  with  each  other.  Trees  and  fields 
and  rocks  and  hills  and  lakes  are  a  language 
that  man  and  animal  alike  can  heed,  and  heed- 
ing reply  to  with  mutual  understanding. 

But  now,  not  to  dwell  longer  upon  the  larger 
language  of  our  own  times,  since  as  a  matter  of 
course  anything,  from  the  standpoint  of  its 
principle,  must  be  more  inclusive  than  the  or- 
dinarily recognized  expression  of  it,  we  have 


1 82  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

left  to  consider,  more  directly  than  heretofore, 
or  at  least  from  a  side  not  yet  approached,  the 
nature  and  the  function  of  language.  Subject 
and  object,  or  thought  and  language,  we  have 
found  to  be  two  contemporary  incidents  in  the 
life  of  the  organic,  and  they  represent  not  two 
things  but  a  relation,  which  is  essential  to  the 
very  integrity  of  an  organic  nature.  The  sub- 
ject, an  organism  itself,  is  also  a  relation  within 
an  organic  whole,  and  the  tension  of  this  re- 
lation makes  the  consciousness  of  the  object. 
But  a  subject's  consciousness,  arising  in  this 
way  or  having  this  general  character,  has  the 
effect  of  giving  to  the  subject,  not  exactly  two 
activities,  but  two  phases  of  one  activity.  Thus, 
it  makes  the  subject  at  once  in  a  state  of  overt 
expression  and  in  a  state  of  restraint,  at  once 
active  to  what  is  without  and  active  to  self,  at 
once  more  or  less  impulsively  active  and  more 
or  less  under  control.  So  real,  so  positive  is 
this  division  or  differentiation  in  the  activity  of 
an  organism,  that  one  sees  in  it,  after  all,  only 
the  organic  character  itself.  Not  only  is  the 
relationship,  upon  which  organism  depends, 
inseparable  from  a  fulfilling  activity,  but  also 
essential  to  this  activity  is  the  negative  factor 
of  control ;  and  if  heretofore  we  have  explained 
the    object    as    due    to    dynamic    relationship, 


THOUGHT  AND  LANGUAGE.  183 

we  can  now  say  with  the  same  meaning  that 
it  is  due  to  subjective  control.  The  much  used 
Law  of  Relativity  is  not  less  a  law  of  control  in 
organic  life  than  a  law  of  objectivity. 

In  fact,  an  object  in  just  so  far  as  it  is  object- 
ive is  the  symbol  of  a  controlled  act,  its  unity 
or  organic  wholeness  reflecting  the  relations 
implied  in  the  act  itself.  Thus,  to  approach 
the  factor  of  control  from  a  slightly  different 
standpoint,  activity,  whether  as  abstractly  pos- 
sible or  thinkable  or  as  positively  known  in  the 
world,  is  at  once  differentiating  and  organizing. 
Wholly  general  acts  and  wholly  specific  acts 
are  impossible.  Impossible  also  are  wholly 
unconscious  acts,  since  consciousness  is  the 
tension  of  the  general  and  the  specific.  Ac- 
cordingly expression  at  any  time,  although 
never  isolated,  in  the  first  place  is  always  with 
reference  to  some  meaning,  and  in  the  second 
place  always  induces  a  more  particular  mean- 
ing. Thus,  paradoxically,  every  act  both  has 
a  purpose  or  a  determined  relation  before  ex- 
pression, and  upon  expression  finds  what  its 
purpose  or  relation  is.  Action,  in  short,  al- 
though not  without  meaning,  always  induces 
interpretation  of  itself;  it  always  realizes  an 
existing  relationship.  But  the  interpretation 
in   its   turn   always   induces  control,   and  con- 


1 84  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

trol   brings   activity  to  self  and  consciousness 
of  a  not-self.1 

Of  course  the  mere  fact  of  activity  to  self  in 
the  life  of  an  organism  is  very  easily  identified, 
if  one  is  not  already  quite  familiar  with  it. 
Large-written  examples  of  it  are  in  the  difference 
between  men  and  animals,  men  being  human 
and  having  man's  "  natural "  environment,  in  so 
far  as  they  live  the  animal  life  to  themselves ;  and 
in  the  general  dependence  of  rational  observation 
on  control.  The  day  laborer  who  would  deal 
the  second  blow  more  accurately  than  the  first, 
pauses  that  the  involved  relations  may  define 
themselves,  but  the  first  had  given  him  the 
interest  in  accuracy  for  the  second.  Reading, 
too,  is  not  psychologically  different  from  the 
laborer's  reflection.  The  presented  page,  we 
usually  say,  in  its  symbols  awakens  a  very  highly 
complex  imagery,  in  the  form  of  reminiscences 
of  all  sorts  and  suggestions  and  fancies,  but  it  all 
stands  for  a  life  that  the  reader  has  come  to  live 
to  himself.  It  is  his  past,  which  as  he  reads  re- 
turns, but  in  the  form  of  an  object,  in  which  the 
unity  of  the  present  is  symbolized,  and  through 
which  a  more  accurate  blow  at  life  is  in  prepara- 
tion.    The  reader  is  measuring  the  relations  of 

1  This  relation  between  objectivity  and  subjective  control  I 
have  also  discussed  at  some  length  in  the  article  on  "  The 
Stages  of  Knowledge,"  already  referred  to  on  p.  119. 


THOUGHT  AND  LANGUAGE.  1 85 

things  in  his  world  with  reference  to  the  organic 
tendencies  in  himself,  and  can  be  a  reader  only 
as  he  controls  the  tendencies.  A  lion,  further- 
more, who  growls  instead  of  rushing  at  once 
into  the  conflict,  is  turned  scientist  for  a  period, 
or,  suppose  we  say,  has  found  the  pen  mightier 
than  the  sword;  and  wherever  even  in  animal 
life  hesitation  or  withdrawal  from  immediate 
action  manifests  itself,  there  without  question  is 
an  activity  to  self  which  involves  also  a  clearing 
consciousness  of  the  sphere  of  activity,  so  to 
speak,  a  definition  of  the  medium.  And  in 
technical  theory,  where  large  facts  are  always 
small-written,  the  same  activity  to  self  is  recog- 
nized. Thus,  the  sensation  as  a  relation  is  in 
itself  symbolic  of  some  controlled  action  in  an- 
other part  of  the  organism.  Sound  to  the  ear 
answers  to  the  control  of  the  voice,  and  distance 
to  the  eye  answers  to  a  restrained  movement  of 
head  or  hand  or  even  of  the  whole  body.  Illus- 
trations, then,  are  not  wanting  of  the  general 
principle  that  subjective  control  is  an  incident  of 
the  consciousness  of  an  object,  or  that  the  move- 
ment to  organization  in  the  object,  the  outer 
world,  is  in  sympathy  with  that  in  the  self  or 
subject,  if  not  even  identical  with  it. 

Activity  to  self,  furthermore,  as  the  phrase 
itself  ought  to  indicate,  is  not  a  mere  negation. 


1 86  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

It  is  more   than   cessation  of   self-expression. 
It  is  itself  a  very  definite  activity,  or  let  us  say 
a  very  real  part  of  the  functional  life  of  an 
organism.     It  is  so  real  and  so  definite  that  it 
has  fulfilled  itself  in  organs  specially  developed 
with  it.     The  very  division,   noted  above,   of 
an  organism's  activity  into  an  activity  to  what 
is  without  and  an  activity  to  what  is  within, 
is  one  and  the   same  with  the  differentiation  of 
organs  of  thought  from  organs  of  mere  conduct, 
or,   roughly  speaking,   of  brain-functions  from 
body-functions.     Moreover,  to   venture  a  step 
farther  in  this  physiological  interpretation,  not 
only  are  the  organs  of  thought  very  plainly  in 
a  living  interactive  connection  with   those  of 
conduct,  and  also  in  their  separation  parallel  to 
the  general  opposition  of  subject  and  object,  or 
thought   and   language,   or   social   and  natural 
environment,  but  also  within  their  own  sphere 
a  corresponding  or  in  truth  a  practically  iden- 
tical dualism    is   necessary.     In  other   words, 
their  control  is  both  of  organs  that  are  "  right- 
handed,"  or  directly  governed,  and  of  organs 
that  are  "left-handed,"  acting  only  mechani- 
cally although  in  symmetry  or  sympathy  with 
those  under  the  direct  government.     In  order  to 
indicate   this   correspondence   still  more  defi- 
nitely, it  might  be  said  that  just  as  environ- 


THOUGHT  AND  LANGUAGE.  1 87 

ment,  or  in  general  the  outer  object,  may  fairly 
be  called  an  organism's  left  hand,  so  quite 
within  the  organism  the  whole  system  of 
negatively  or  indirectly  controlled  organs  is 
objective  or  physically  environing  to  the  com- 
plementary system  that  acts  right-handedly; 
and,  in  a  single  word  or  two,  the  correspond- 
ence means  that  right-handedness  and  symbolic 
expression  are  inseparable  functions.1 

But  if  activity  to  self  be  as  real  and  as  posi- 
tive as  its  expression  in  specially  developed 
organs  would  imply,  just  how  may  it  be  posi- 
tively characterized  ?  Briefly,  it  is  nothing  but 
the  subjection  of  foregoing  activity  to  a  sort  of 
self-centred  repetition  or  rehearsal,  in  order 
that  before  overt  expression  recurs  the  condi- 
tions and  induced  interpretation  of  the  activity 
may  be  fully  defined.  Recurrence  is  always 
necessarily  the  underlying  motive,  but  the  pre- 

1  Professor  Baldwin's  theory  of  right-handedness  (Mental 
Development  of  the  Child  and  the  Race,  pp.  58  ff.,  Macmillan, 
1895)  is  certainly  not  opposed  to  the  suggestion  here  made. 
He  finds  a  "  fundamental  connection  between  the  rise  of  speech 
and  the  rise  of  right-handedness  "  (p.  67),  and  we  have  found 
an  equally  fundamental  connection  between  the  language  func- 
tion in  general  (i.  e.  consciousness  of  a  mediating  environment, 
self-consciousness)  and  the  direct  or  "  right-handed  "  control  of 
one-half  of  the  body.  In  my  little  book,  "Citizenship  and 
Salvation,"  I  have  even  discovered  a  right-handedness  in  the 
relation  of  Socrates  to  the  Greeks  and  of  Christ  to  the  Jews 
and  Romans.     Op.  cit.  pp.  27-28,  and  68-70. 


1 88  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

viously  induced  experience  enforces  a  sense  of 
responsibility  and  a  consequent  control.  Eyes 
and  ears  and  tongue  and  hand,  all  of  them 
intimately  involved  in  the  special  thought- 
system  and  all  of  them  marvellously  mobile, 
are  organs,  in  which  originally  overt  acts  are 
relationally  or  organically  reproduced ;  and  the 
reproduction,  being  always  in  tension  with  overt 
expression,  gives  rise  to  a  symbolic  conscious- 
ness, which  has  the  form  of  an  after-image. 
This  after-image,  however,  has  all  the  essential 
marks  of  a  name,1  and  the  controlled  use  of  it, 
the  use  of  it  with  reference  to  its  origin,  is 
nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  expression  of 
self  in  language ;  nor  are  we  obliged  here  to  un- 
derstand the  term  "  language"  in  a  sense  a  whit 
narrower  than  that  before  enjoined,  although 
the  narrower  sense  is  here  fully  interpreted. 

Language,  finally,  as  the  after-image  that 
rises  in  consciousness  because  of  the  tension 
between  control  or  rehearsal  and  overt  expres- 
sion, obviously  has  a  triple  function,  the  three 

1  I  hardly  need  to  say  that  both  the  terms  here,  "  name  "  and 
"  after-image,"  are  used  with  regard  to  underlying  principles,  not 
to  mere  ordinary  applications.  The  after-image,  for  example, 
that  belongs  to  abnormal  conditions  or  that  introspection  and 
experiment  discover,  is  one  thing ;  the  natural  after-image  is 
quite  another.  And  a  name  is  any  symbolic  representation 
of  external  relations. 


THOUGHT  AND  LANGUAGE.  1 89 

parts  of  which  correspond  to  the  three  rela- 
tions that  an  individual,  in  tension  with  the 
life  of  an  organic  whole,  inevitably  assumes. 
Language  is  (1)  objectively  descriptive  or 
representative,  relating  the  self  to  its  natural 
environment;  (2)  socially  or  organically  media- 
tive,  relating  the  self  to  others  in  kind;  and  (3) 
individually  redemptive,  relating  the  self  to 
the  unity  of  all.  The  inseparableness  of  these 
parts,  moreover,  is  the  all-important  conclu- 
sion from  this  chapter;  and  although  our  pres- 
ent purposes  will  be  satisfied  without  further 
statement,  one  cannot  help  drawing  the  moral 
that  in  human  life  scientific  truth,  social  inter- 
course, and  prayer  to  God  should  be  a  single 
interest,  and  not  the  three  separate  interests 
that  they  seem  to  have  been  so  long.  Indeed, 
for  such  time  as  they  are  separate  not  one  of 
them  is  what  it  claims  to  be.  An  individual's 
science,  for  example,  science  without  inter- 
course, is  formal,  and  only  intercourse  can 
make  it  dynamic.  Prayer,  too,  without  science, 
is  also  without  faith.  The  true  prayer  is  the 
scientific  intercourse  of  many,  the  science  giv- 
ing it  faith  and  the  intercourse  giving  it  life 
or  motive. 

But  after  language,  action.    Simply  by  reason 
of  the  organic  connection  between  the  organs 


190  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

of  activity  to  self  and  the  organs  of  overt 
activity,  thought  sooner  or  later  dies  in  a  ful- 
filling conduct;  naming  is  succeeded  by  doing; 
the  self,  only  for  a  time  identified  with  its  iso- 
lating thought-organs,  abandons  the  rehearsing 
and  the  after-imagery,  returning  to  its  world, 
—  entering  the  World  of  Acts,  passing  from 
appearance  to  reality.1 

In  social  evolution,  where  the  conscious  organism 
is  a  whole  people,  the  same  process  of  thought  that 
has  just  been  outlined  here  from  the  standpoint  of  a 
single  individual,  can  be  easily  detected.  Thus,  with 
the  rise  and  growing  supremacy  of  a  metropolis,  a 
people  is  seen  to  be  thinking  and  u  naming "  its 
former  life,  to  be  living  the  former  life  to  itself.  The 
city,  so  wonderfully  mobile,  exhibits  miles  of  farm- 
land and  years  of  experience  focused  even  in  a 
single  block.  It  is  the  very  much  contracted  life  and 
in  its  institutions  the  very  much  contracted  symbol 
of  the  country.  The  old  relations  persist,  but  greatly 
intensified.  The  great  department- store,  for  example, 
is  the  country-store  over  again,  but  on  a  much  grander 
scale ;  and  the  streets  have  the  same  function  as  the 
country  roads,  but  driver  and  wayfarer  cannot  be  too 
alert.  Also,  no  new  institutions  are  created,  but  the 
old  ones  of  the  village  are  established  on  larger  plans. 

1  Or,  in  Kant's  terms,  from  "phenomena"  to  the  "thing-in- 
itself."  Kant's  phenomenal  world,  however,  was  a  language 
or  medium,  to  which  he  denied  any  actual  mediation,  —  a 
dead  language. 


THOUGHT  AND  LANGUAGE.  191 

Yes,  the  city  repeats  or  rehearses  the  country  life, 
and  intensifies  it,  turning  simplicity  into  complexity, 
naivete  into  self- consciousness  and  sophistication.  But, 
more  than  this,  the  rise  of  cities  with  their  congested 
population  always  shows  the  country  life  suffering  de- 
cline, the  people  living  it  henceforth  to  themselves. 
Do  but  consider,  in  evidence,  how  the  rural  civiliza- 
tion decays.  The  country  people  lose  their  culture 
and  change  to  mere  drudges,  little  better  than  day 
laborers.  Inactivity  sets  in  among  them.  Even 
their  agriculture  often  passes  into  the  hands  of  large 
owners,  and  becomes,  so  far  as  the  country  is  con- 
cerned, a  purely  mechanical,  left-handed  process,  be- 
ing indeed  very  commonly  transferred  to  unsettled 
territory.  The  great  department-store  not  only  repro- 
duces the  country-store,  but  takes  away  its  business  by 
carrying  on  an  ever-increasing  "  out-of-town  "  trade. 
And  the  city  goes  to  the  theatre  and  the  ball,  while 
the  deserted  old  people  on  the  farms  pine  for  the 
days  when  life  was  so  much  more  worth  while, 
resenting  perhaps  the  means  of  communication  and 
transportation  that  have  made  the  changed  conditions 
possible.  In  short,  then,  the  country  dies  as  the  city 
lives ;  and  it  dies,  just  because,  as  was  said,  in  the 
city  a  people  comes  to  live  its  old  life  to  itself,  or  to 
"  name  "  the  old  life,  the  positive  activity  having  been 
put  in  abeyance.  Thus,  again,  with  an  absorbing 
interest  rather  in  control,  distribution,  communication, 
and  manufacture  than  in  direct  production,  the  city 
manifests  just  such  a  withdrawal  from  nature,  —  that  is, 
from  the  sphere  of  original  expression,  —  as  is  implied 


192  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

in  thinking  generally;  to   repeat,  it  shows  a  whole 
people  thinking  a  former  life. 

Furthermore,  contemporaneous  with  the  rise  of 
the  city  is  the  division  of  the  people  into  classes. 
Names  for  these  classes  are  not  easily  found,  but 
the  following  will  serve  to  mark  the  essential  differ- 
ences :  (i)  Thinkers  arise,  who  control;  (2)  officials, 
who  do  the  clerical  work,  so  to  speak,  of  getting  the 
after-image  on  paper ;  and  (3)  laborers,  who  partly 
in  the  country  and  partly  in  the  city  do  the  physical 
drudgery.  Plato  found  these  classes,  though  he  gave 
them  slightly  different  names,  in  the  city  of  Athens, 
when  Greek  thinking  was  at  its  height.  But  either 
Plato's  names  or  ours  suggest  a  sort  of  analogy  to 
the  (1)  right-handed  and  (2)  left-handed  organs  of 
thought  and  (3)  the  merely  physical  organs  of  conduct. 
To  the  analogy  itself,  in  the  terms  given,  there  probably 
attaches  no  great  importance,  but  it  certainly  indicates 
some  fundamental  relations  in  social  life. 

"  But,  after  language,  action.  .  .  .  Thought  sooner 
or  later  dies  in  a  fulfilling  conduct ;  naming  is  suc- 
ceeded by  doing."  The  evolution  of  the  classes  in 
society  shows  this.  These  classes,  though  retaining 
their  original  relations,  change  both  in  their  form  and 
in  their  personnel  after  some  such  plan  as  follows, 
the  several  stages  or  moments  being  (1)  the  stage  of 
consciously  asserted  patriotism,  (2)  the  stage  of 
aesthetic  self- appreciation,  (3)  the  stage  of  the  cos- 
mopolitan spirit,  (4)  the  stage  of  assumed  and  cul- 
tivated naturalism,  and  (5)  the  stage  of  spiritual 
surrender  or  resignation.     Thus  :  — 


THOUGHT  AND  LANGUAGE. 


193 


Five  Stages  in  Social  Evolution. 

ii 

Thinkers 

Officials 

Laborers 

Historical  Illus- 
tration 

1 

Law-makers 

Soldiers 

Slaves 

Greece  before  Peri- 
cles' time 

2 

Artists 

Citizens 

Paid  Servants 

The  Age  of  Peri- 
cles 

3 

Scientists 

Politicians 

Artisans 

The  Period  just  be- 
fore Socrates 

4 

Philosophers 

Fatalists   or 
Time-servers 

Revolutionists 

The  Socratic  Period 

5 

Religious 
Leader 

Followers 

Hirelings 

Greece,  a  Christian- 
Roman  Province 

Thought  in  general  controls  activity  in  order  to  unify 
it.  The  legislative  thinker,  however,  controls  rather 
through  restraint  than  understanding,  and  is  therefore 
the  first  to  appear  in  the  moments  of  a  society's 
self-consciousness,  and  has  soldiers  and  slaves  as  his 
natural  contemporaries.  After  him  comes  the  artist, 
—  that  is,  the  historian  or  particularly  the  dramatist,  — 
who  defines  life  positively  or  explicitly,  but  still  in  sen- 
suous terms.  The  legislator  only  forbids  expression  of 
impulses,  while  the  artist  controls  it  by  revealing  a  har- 
mony in  the  sphere  of  the  expression.  So  with  artists 
go  citizens  instead  of  mere  soldiers,  and  servants  instead 
of  slaves,  the  larger  freedom  being  shared  by  all  in  the 
body  politic.  Then  after  art  comes  science,  thought 
penetrating  to  a  still  deeper  view.  Science  is  art  at 
its  limit,  just  as  art  might  be  styled  legislation  at  its 
limit.  For  science  art's  sensuously  expressed  ideal 
becomes  only  an  idea  or  a  natural  mechanical  law, 
13 


194  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

the  unity  or  harmony  of  art  being  freed  from  any  sen- 
suous relation  to  restrained  impulses  or  stimulating  ob- 
jects. Contemporary  with  scientists,  therefore,  are  the 
politicians,  for  whom  social  life  is  a  carefully  measured 
opportunity  instead  of  a  devotion,  cosmopolitanism 
having  succeeded  patriotism,  and  artisans,  who  also 
serve  rather  a  trade  than  a  master.  But  close  upon 
science  in  the  evolution  of  a  thinking  society  follows 
philosophy,  and  thereupon  society  is  seen  to  assert 
once  for  all  an  independence  of  traditions,  institu- 
tions, and  long- cherished  ideals.  Moreover,  the  in- 
dependence that  her  philosophers  teach,  her  fatalists 
or  time-servers,  as  if  the  clerks  of  philosophy,  un- 
wittingly practise,  and  her  enemies  at  home  and 
abroad  give  promise  of  fulfilling.  And  the  fulfilment 
comes  with  religion  and  some  form  of  imperialism, 
the  spiritual  and  the  material  finding  themselves 
once  more,  after  a  long  separation,  identified  in  a 
revolution,  in  a  forward  movement  of  history. 

So,  as  was  said,  in  social  as  well  as  in  individual 
life,  conduct  follows  thought.  The  spiritual  con- 
sciousness of  faith  succeeds  the  self-consciousness  of 
reason. 


part  in. 

THE   WORLD   OF  ACTS. 


CHAPTER   XVI. 

REACTION   OR  INTERACTION? 

AT  the  close  of  the  Introduction  the  three 
questions  that  follow  were  set  for  an- 
swer :  What  are  things?  What  are  ideas? 
And  what  are  acts?  These  questions,  as  we 
very  soon  came  to  see,  amounted  to  inquiries 
into  the  nature  of  body  and  mind  and  soul 
respectively ;  and  to  the  first  two  of  them  an- 
swers have  been  given  already,  while  at  least  by 
implication  much  has  been  said  also  in  reply  to 
the  third,  notably  in  the  chapter  entitled  "  Body, 
Mind,  Soul."  Certainly  it  has  been  made  clear 
that  the  objectivity  of  things,  of  ideas,  and  of 
acts  is  not  of  three  distinct  sorts,  —  the  physical, 
the  rational,  and  the  spiritual,  —  but  only  of  one 
sort,  which  we  may  now  call  the  organic.  Of 
the  world  of  acts,  however,  more  remains  to  be 
said.  Certain  implications  need  to  be  made 
explicit.  Thus,  in  the  first  place,  is  the  individ- 
ual self's  activity  a  reaction  or  an  interaction  ? 

This  question  gets  its  interest  from  the  fact 
that  not  only  ethics  but  also  psychology  and 


198  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

even  physiological  psychology  have  held,  or  at 
least  expressed  themselves  as  if  they  held,  that 
the  typical  act  was  a  reaction,  and  this  in  the 
face  of  very  serious  difficulties.1  As  commonly 
represented,  reaction  is  a  dualistic  conception, 
being  in  general  the  peculiar  response  to  an 
external  stimulus,  or,  in  other  words,  the  mani- 
festation of  a  causal  power, — that  is,  a  power  of 
initiating  action,  —  attributed  to  some  isolated 
organ  or  organic  individual.  Now  in  one  way, 
now  in  another,  the  advocates  of  reaction  de- 
clare that  a  certain  single  representative  of  the 
world's  phenomena  does  wholly  of  itself  cause 
the  differences,  if  not  even  the  existence,  of 
some  other  representative;  that  representative 
ay  for  example,  causes  representative  b  or  at 
least  whatever  in  b  distinguishes  it  from  a. 
This  view,  however,  of  action  or  causation, 
arising,  as  it  plainly  does,  from  the  notion  that 
individuality  is  a  matter  of  physical  determina- 
tions, is  altogether  absurd,  and  is  seen  to  be  so 
as  soon  as  it  is  clearly  and  directly  stated. 

In  social  life  the  habit  of  cherishing  the 
human  body  after  death  is  an  indication  of  the 
view  of  individual  activity  here  in  question; 
but,  as  hinted  before,  both  physiology  and 
psychology  also  show  the  same  determination 
1  Cf.  pp.  160-161. 


REACTION  OR  INTERACTION?  199 

to  treat  a  single  physical  part  as  having  quite 
within  its  physical  self  the  power  of  initiation, 
or — and  this  in  the  end  amounts  to  the  same 
thing — they  regard  that  upon  which  the  in- 
dividual acts  as  only  the  external  occasion,  the 
merest  stimulus  of  the  activity.  This,  however, 
is  sheer  creationism,  and  one  wonders,  upon  rec- 
ognizing its  marks,  how  it  can  have  held  its  own 
so  long  in  scientific  circles.  Even  the  physical 
scientist,  in  the  very  face  of  his  hypothesis  of 
conservation,  has  failed  again  and  again  to  see 
that  causal  relationship  among  nature's  phe- 
nomena cannot  possibly  be  an  affair  of  the  arbi- 
trary creative  reaction  of  one  part  upon  another, 
but  must  be  something  altogether  different  from 
this;  being,  let  us  say  at  once,  much  more 
accurately  described  as  an  interaction  of  the 
parts,  or,  to  use  the  very  terms  employed  before 
in  the  account  of  mind,  a  relating  activity,  in 
which  nature  ever  realizes  or  substantiates 
herself.  Cause  and  effect,  too,  like  end  and 
means,  must  be  contemporaries;  they  cannot 
belong  to  separate  intervals  of  time,  as  the 
dualist  would  have  them. 

But  somebody  says  at  this  point,  as  if  still 
unconvinced,  that  action,  or  at  least  the  action 
of  a  living  self,  must  be  free,  having  not  only  a 
power  of  initiation  but  also  a  power  of  material 


200  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

creation.     Well,  so  it  must,  if  by  life  you  mean 
something    external    to    the   agent,   something 
introduced    from   without.      To    any   one,   any 
agent,  living  a  life  not  his  own,  initiation  and 
creation  are  necessary.     Such  an  agent,  how- 
ever,   is   not  substantially  free.      The  freedom 
given  to  him  in  his  power  of  material  creation 
is  wholly  taken  away  in  his  dependence  upon 
an  external  life  or  an  external  stimulus.     His 
power   of  initiation   is    only   a   conceit.      Give 
him  creative  power,  then,  if  you  must,  but  rec- 
ognize  that  so    far   as    he   is    concerned    what 
he  does  or  makes  is  wholly  idle,  being  useless 
to  him  in  the  next  minute.     Such   creation  is 
what  in  popular  language  has  sometimes  been 
known   as  "puttering;"  and  I  venture  to  say 
that  even  the  subjects  of  study  in  many  lab- 
oratories of  the  present  day  are  so  far  diverted 
from  their  natural  life  by  formalistic  scientists 
as  to  be  made  mere  "  putterers."     Puttering  is 
not  confined  to  the  every-day  life  of  society,  for 
let   us  remember  that  subjects  in  laboratories 
are  very  much  like  actors  on  a  stage,  exhibiting 
to  the  public  its  own  foibles. 

Fortunately  the  freedom  of  formal  initiation 
and  material  creation  is  not  the  only  freedom. 
Life  can  also  be  free  to  create  itself,  to  be  crea- 
tive  within  itself;  and  with  such  a  freedom  it 


REACTION  OR  INTERACTION?  201 

quite  escapes  from  the  need  of  peculiar  responses 
to  external  stimuli.  Thus,  in  the  first  place, 
since  life  is  in  reality  universal,  since  there  is  no 
lifeless  sphere,  no  realm  of  the  essentially  inor- 
ganic, sudden  coming  into  being  is  unnecessary. 
All  parts  already  share  in  the  vital  force ;  no 
part  possesses  anything  peculiar  ;  so  that  effects 
external  to  or  different  from  their  causes,  as 
well  as  agents  aloof  from  their  stimuli,  are  quite 
out  of  place,  differences  being  quite  as  much  an 
antecedent  condition  as  a  subsequent  result  of 
activity.  Organic  differentiation  is  creative,  but 
quite  in  and  of  itself,  quite  within  itself.  Actual 
relationship,  in  which  lies  the  world's  substan- 
tiality, as  well  as  that  of  any  individual  in  the 
world,  requires  change,  but  a  change  only  intrin- 
sic to  itself.  And,  in  the  second  place,  freedom 
under  any  other  principle  than  that  of  an  iden- 
tity of  inner  motive  and  outer  stimulus  is,  after 
all  is  said,  as  empirically  unreal  as  it  is  theoreti- 
cally impossible.  Even  the  dualist  shows  this, 
when  he  makes  the  agent  arbitrary  and  the  outer 
stimulus  external,  since  external  stimulus  and 
arbitrary  initiation  are  one  and  the  same  thing. 

That  stimulus  and  motive  are  one,  we  have 
seen  in  many  places  already.  Perhaps  the  uni- 
versality of  language  is  the  most  direct  and 
suggestive  indication  of  the  identity;  but  in  the 


202  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

fact  of  environment  being  natural,  not  alien,  or 
of  adjustment  being  original,  not  acquired,  or  of 
ideas  and  forces  being  one  and  the  same,  not  two 
and  distinct,  or  of  objectivity  being  incident  to 
the  negative  factor  of  control,  that  is  involved  in 
all  organic  life,  motive  and  stimulus,  the  inner 
and  the  outer,  are  seen  to  be  inseparable.  And, 
as  for  current  psychology,  the  doctrine  of  sensa- 
tion as  not  an  element  of  knowledge,  as  not 
a  peculiar  consciousness  of  a  physical  disturb- 
ance, but  a  relation,  is  its  most  direct  index  to 
the  same  inseparableness.  Indeed,  from  the 
standpoint  of  psychology,  I  have  myself  liked  to 
call  the^ identity  of  stimulus  and  motive  the  first 
law  of  knowledge,  although,  or  possibly  just 
because,  it  is  a  law  rather  of  action  than  of 
knowledge.  The  sensation  as  a  relation,  how- 
ever, objectivity  as  an  incident  of  organic  con- 
trol, and  motive  and  stimulus  as  identical  are  all 
three  but  different  views  of  the  same  truth ;  they 
all  show  that  action,  instead  of  ever  being  dual- 
istically  reactive,  must  always  be,  as  among 
different  parts  or  between  any  agent  and  his 
environment,  organically  interactive.  How  can 
action  be  anything  else  but  this,  when  environ- 
ment in  its  separation  only  represents  an  other- 
ness that  is  intrinsic  to  the  unity  of  the  self? 
Agent  and  environment,  then,  are  always  each 


REACTION  OR  INTERACTION?  203 

other's  natural  contemporaries,  just  as  thought 
and  language  are  contemporary,  living  the  same 
life,  each  in  its  character  being  evolved  with  the 
other,  not  one  from  or  out  of  the  other.  Both 
evolution  and  creationism  have  been  disposed 
to  make  one  of  the  two  outgrow  the  other,  and 
so  have  erred  seriously.  According  to  evolu- 
tion, mind  has  not  only  grown  out  of,  but  it  has 
also  outgrown  matter,  and,  according  to  crea- 
tionism, matter,  although  originally  produced  by 
mind,  has  had  henceforth  no  natural  dealings 
with  its  cause.  But,  like  the  left  hand,  with 
which  we  have  already  compared  it,  environ- 
ment really  keeps  in  adjustment  to  its  right- 
handed  agent. 

In  the  view  of  action,  furthermore,  to  which 
we  have  been  led,  there  are  involved  important 
conclusions  about  such  bones  of  contention  in 
the  scientific  world  as  impulse,  instinct,  and 
habit.     Briefly,  then,  what  can  we  say  of  these? 

Parallel  to  the  opposition  that  has  been  out- 
lined between  arbitrary  reaction  and  organic  in- 
teraction, is  that  between  impulse,  instinct,  and 
habit  as  marking  three  distinct  sorts  or  classes  of 
activity,  and  as  marking  only  three  inseparable  in- 
cidents of  all  activity.  An  agent,  whose  environ- 
ment is  alien  and  who  is  therefore  condemned 
to  arbitrary  reactions  upon  external  stimulations 


204  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

will  apparently  have  three  distinct  sorts  of  acts 
to  offer  in  any  of  life's  emergencies :  first,  acts 
that  are  with  reference  to  the  environment  but 
not  in  adjustment  to  it,  —  blindly  impulsive  acts, 
in  other  words;  second,  acts  that  are  neither 
with  reference  to  environment  nor  in  adjustment 
to  it,  or  so-called  instinctive  acts;  and,  third, 
acts  that  are  both  with  reference  to  environment 
and  in  adjustment  to  it,  or  habits.  Thus,  as 
the  terms  are  very  commonly  used  in  human 
relations,  a  man's  impulses  are  only  his  blind 
feelings  for  adjustment,  acts  that  may  or  may 
not  be  successful;  his  habits  are  actual  adjust- 
ments ;  and  his  instincts  not  adjustments  at  all. 
All  three,  however,  are  forms  of  arbitrary  reac- 
tion, since  the  impulses  are  blind,  the  instincts 
are  useless,  and  the  habits  can  be  secured  only 
by  chance  and  continued  only  by  literal  repeti- 
tion, so  that  the  agent  really  gains  nothing  from 
the  choice  that  we  have  conceded  him.  This, 
however,  suggests  that  the  three  sorts  of  activity 
must,  after  all,  be  one,  and  that  the  dualism 
which,  through  its  notion  of  an  alien  environ- 
ment, manages  at  least  in  a  fictitious  way  to 
separate  them,  is  itself  a  fiction. 

But  how  can  impulse,  instinct,  and  habit  be 
one  and  still  retain  the  distinct  meanings  that 
men  insist  on  giving  them?     Well,  it  is  easy  to 


REACTION  OR  INTERACTION?  205 

see  that  impulsiveness  at  least  must  be  charac- 
teristic of  all  activity,  since  acts  in  so  far  as  par- 
ticular —  that  is,  as  distinguished  in  any  way  — 
must  have  some  already  defined  relations,  and 
so  cannot  be  in  themselves  purely  impulsive. 
So  I  say  that  impulsiveness  belongs  rather  to 
activity  as  such  than  to  any  special  group  of 
acts.  To  declare,  for  example,  that  somebody 
has  many  impulses,  to  classify  impulses,  is  to 
lose  sight  of  what  impulse  is.  Impulse,  like 
stimulus,  must  be  one,  not  many.  The  outer 
world  is  not  properly  looked  upon  as  a  group 
of  stimuli,  since  the  real  stimulus  is  always  the 
relational  unity  of  all  the  parts ;  nor  should  the 
subject  within  be  thought  to  be  a  bundle  of  im- 
pulses or  to  have  in  itself  a  conflict  of  impulses 
with  habits  or  with  any  other  supposedly 
"  higher  "  activities,  since  all  movement  towards 
activity  springs  only  from  the  dynamic  charac- 
ter of  organic  unity.  And,  again,  impulse  can 
be  neither  something  to  be  avoided  nor  some- 
thing to  be  expressed  in  action,  since  action 
itself  is  impossible  without  it;  and,  as  for  im- 
pulse being  blind,  it  undoubtedly  is  so,  if  the 
blindness  is  with  reference  to  something  wholly 
external  to  the  activity.  A  consciousness,  how- 
ever, of  the  inner  conditions  of  the  activity,  a 
consciousness  incident  to  the  interactions  of  the 


206  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

organic  members  of  the  agent,  accompanies  all 
impulsive  action. 

And  habit,  as  an  act  of  adjustment,  is,  so  to 
speak,  environment  urging  its  fulfilment  in  the 
self.  It  is  the  impulsiveness  of  action  from  the 
standpoint  of  environment.  We  talk  of  bad 
habits  and  of  good  habits,  but  so  doing  we  use 
the  term  loosely,  since  habit,  like  stimulus  and 
like  impulse,  is  fundamentally  one.  Only  the 
thing  that  a  man  is  always  doing  can  be  called  a 
true  habit,  and  a  man  is  always  doing  only  one 
thing.  The  so-called  habit,  the  habit  of  par- 
ticular relations,  has  the  company  of  other 
activities  and  so  is  not  habitual.  Its  form  as 
well  as  its  meaning  is  constantly  changing. 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  being  condemned  to 
a  particular  line  of  conduct.  "  Habits  "  can  be 
changed,  because  they  do  change  of  themselves, 
because  they  are  not  habitual,  because  they 
are  particular. 

Finally,  if  impulse  and  habit  are  the  same 
thing  from  two  sides,  what  of  instinct?  Instinct 
applies  to  the  selfs  activity  in  so  far  as  it 
realizes  a  social  relation  to  lower  forms  of  life 
or  an  adjustment  to  what  has  been  called  here 
the  "  natural "  environment.  The  activity  of 
individual  organs  is  instinctive;  of  the  whole 
organism,  impulsive  or  habitual ;  and  of  course 


REACTION  OR  INTERACTION?  207 

the  two  are  not  to  be  separated,  being  one 
activity  after  all.  Animals,  we  are  wont  to  say, 
are  instinctive,  not  rational;  but  animals  are 
social  only  to  a  part  of  our  life  or  only  to  our 
life  in  individual  organs.  Instinct,  then,  is 
related  to  habit,  the  activity  of  the  organ  to  that 
of  the  organism,  very  much  as  means  to  end; 
and,  in  view  of  this  relation,  we  can  say  con- 
clusively that  all  activity  is  impulsive  and 
habitual  and  instinctive.  One  cannot  escape 
one's  instincts,  nor  can  one  on  the  other  hand 
safely  lose  the  self  in  them ;  but  still  all  activ- 
ity is  instinctive.  Indeed  all  three,  —  impulse, 
instinct,  and  habit,  —  being  fundamental  in  all 
activity,  are  alike  in  this  respect,  that  they  are  to 
be  neither  avoided  nor  cultivated  for  their  own 
sakes.  They  are  all  to  be  trusted,  but  not 
courted;    and  controlled,  but  not  abandoned. 

Now  action,  as  at  once  impulsive,  instinctive, 
and  habitual,  as  always  inducing  change  even 
in  the  interest  of  preserving  unity,  is  the  source 
of  the  individual  agent's  substantiality,  while  at 
the  same  time  it  relates  him  to  the  whole  of 
which  he  is  an  organic  part.  Actuality  of 
relationship,  in  other  words,  not  physical  parti- 
tion or  determination,  is  the  true  criterion  of  real 
individuality.  The  agent,  who  acts  in  the  way 
here  advocated,  is  not  less  an  individual  because 


208  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

not  exercising  a  peculiar  arbitrary  creative 
power,  but  is  all  the  more  truly  an  individual 
for  being  so  immediately  responsible  to  what  is 
—  and  to  himself  as  a  vital  incident  of  what  is. 
Here,  however,  we  are  brought  to  the  fact  of 
will,  to  be  considered  in  another  chapter.  Of 
course,  apart  from  a  substantial  individuality  in 
the  agent,  will  would  be  even  less  than  the 
breath  used  in  speaking  the  word. 


CHAPTER   XVII. 

WILL. 

WILL  is  the  demand,  essential  in  organic 
life,  for  preservation  of  the  integrity  of 
organic  differences.  Every  organ,  then,  be- 
cause different,  because  individual,  having  a 
particular  relation  to  maintain,  a  peculiar 
function  to  express,  has  a  will,  and  with  its 
will  a  substantial  freedom.  True,  no  indi- 
vidual has  an  alien  environment  to  deal  with; 
but  it  has  the  otherness,  the  objectivity,  which 
is  fundamental  to  its  own  nature,  and  this 
otherness  makes  its  will  actual  and  its  freedom 
real.  With  reference  to  an  alien  environment 
will  and  freedom  could  be  only  formal, —  con- 
ceits, not  facts. 

Will,  then,  to  bring  into  use  here  a  conclu- 
sion that  was  defined  quite  clearly  in  the  pre- 
ceding chapter,  is  not  arbitrarily  creative  but 
responsibly  mediative.  It  is  not  something 
imposed  upon  activity  from  without,  but  is 
itself  a  part  of  activity.  It  is  the  positive  of 
that  of  which  we  have  found  control,  also  an 
14 


210  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

inner  incident  of  action,  to  be  the  negative.  It 
is  related  to  control  as  the  subject  is  related  to 
the  object  or  the  self  to  the  not-self.  And 
here,  at  least  so  far  as  principles  go,  we  might 
stop.  To  say  more  is  hardly  necessary.  Still, 
now  as  before,  criticism  of  special  theories 
and  illustration  from  practical  affairs  may  not 
be  altogether  idle.  Thinkers,  as  well  as  chil- 
dren, should  be  allowed  to  play  with  their 
developed  powers. 

The  doctrine  of  will  is  intimately  connected 
with  that  of  the  feeling  of  effort ;  and  naturally 
enough,  since  effort  is  an  evidence  of  will.  Of 
the  feeling  of  effort,  however,  there  are  even 
to-day  two  contending  theories  among  psychol- 
ogists, both  of  them  involving  a  separation  of 
will  and  action,  —  the  Innervation  Theory  and 
the  Afferent  Theory,  referred  to  in  a  former 
chapter.1  These  theories  are  parallel  to  those 
of  emotion  and  attention  that  were  examined  in 
the  chapter  on  "Interest."  Thus,  the  former 
of  the  two  says  that  the  feeling  of  effort  is  of 
the  output  of  energy  necessary  to  perform  a 
certain  act,  or  let  us  say,  in  interpretation,  the 
agony  of  the  soul  in  its  struggle  with  an  un- 
willing body.  This  undoubtedly  approaches 
to  the  view  to  which  most  men  to-day  unreflec- 
i  P.  164. 


WILL.  211 

tively  incline.  The  Afferent  Theory,  however, 
would  have  the  feeling  of  effort  rather  a  conse- 
quent of  action  than  an  antecedent  of  it ;  and  to 
this  view  many  psychologists  of  recent  times, 
among  them  even  James,  have  been  very 
strongly  disposed.  If  the  Innervation  Theory 
would  have  us  feel  our  souls  as  something 
entering  the  organs  of  action  from  without,  the 
Afferent  Theory,  not  less  violent  in  its  separa- 
tion of  the  willing  agent  from  the  sphere  of  his 
activity,  would  have  us  feel  the  effort  of  an 
act,  —  that  is,  feel  responsible  for  an  act, —  in 
which  we  really  have  had  no  part,  making  the 
feeling  only  attendant  upon  action,  not  vitally 
incident  to  it.  In  one  case,  then,  we  are  not 
naturally  interested  in  what  we  do;  in  the 
other,  we  did  not  do  it. 

Such,  then,  are  the  theories  that  we  have  to 
face  with  all  boldness.  No  doubt  a  certain 
plausibility  belongs  to  each  of  them.  In  social 
life  and  on  laboratory  tables  we  do  often  come 
across  characters  that  seem  the  incarnation  of 
one  or  the  other  of  them.  Some  people,  for 
example,  feel  so  much  effort  before  they  have 
done  anything, —  so  much,  in  fact,  that  they 
stop  at  the  feeling;  and  others  feel  so  keenly  the 
effort  of  what  they  have  done,  whether  just  now 
or  long  ago,  or  even  of  what  others  are  doing, — 


212  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

they  feel  this  so  keenly  that  they,  too,  turn 
inactive.  But,  after  all,  living  on  the  mere 
zeal  of  future  activity  or  on  the  mere  fatigue  of 
past  activity  or  of  others'  activity  is  not  real 
effort.  Effort  is  neither  antecedent  zeal  nor 
subsequent  fatigue;  it  is  in  and  of  activity 
itself. 

Activity,  like  everything  else  which  we  have 
had  occasion  to  consider,  is  not  manifold  and 
serial,  but  single  and  continuous.  Nobody 
ever  does  or  ever  did  more  than  one  thing. 
Upon  one  deed,  and  one  deed  only,  each  one  of 
us  is  forever  harping.  Hence  the  worth  and 
the  hope  and  the  responsibility  of  life.  But,  if 
action  is  one,  not  many,  the  feeling  of  effort 
can  be  apart  from  it  in  the  sense  of  neither  the 
Innervation  nor  the  Afferent  Theory.  Only 
the  already  or  only  the  still  active  self  can  have 
it.  Suppose  a  man  at  work  in  his  shop,  using 
now  one  tool,  now  another.  His  work  is  neces- 
sarily single;  and  this  too,  although  perhaps 
not  so  obviously  to  a  casual  observer,  even  if  he 
be  a  poor  workman,  say  a  mere  apprentice,  who 
only  "putters."  Certainly  he  is  not  engaged 
in  a  series  of  wholly  unrelated  acts.  His  feel- 
ing of  effort,  then,  belongs  to  his  action.  He 
has  it  because  he  is  doing  something,  not 
because  he  is  going  to  do,  nor  because  he  has 


WILL.  213 

already  done  something.  Only  if  the  work 
were  serial  and  composite  could  the  sense  of 
effort  be  said  to  come  before  or  after  the  use  of 
any  particular  tool.  The  feeling  before  action 
does  very  well  for  an  immaterial  spirit,  an 
unworldly  soul;  and  after  action,  for  a  physi- 
cal automaton;  but  for  a  self  responsibly  at 
work  upon  something  in  the  world  it  cannot 
but  be  in  and  of  the  activity  itself. 

So  the  appeal  to  the  feeling  of  effort  is  no 
argument  for  a  separate  or  arbitrary  will.  On 
the  contrary,  it  leads  to  a  justification  of  an 
intrinsic  or  responsible  will.  Another  appeal, 
however,  is  often  made.  The  moral  life  is 
said  to  need  a  separate  arbitrary  will;  but, 
in  reality,  does  it? 

Listen  to  the  erring  youth.  "I  will  do 
better,"  he  says,  "I  won't  offend  again;  I 
won't,  I  won't,  I  won't!"  And,  as  we  know, 
the  more  he  says  he  will  not  the  more  he  is  in 
danger  of  falling.  But,  on  the  supposition  of 
an  arbitrary  will,  the  resolution  once  made 
would  be  conclusive,  not  perhaps  so  far  as  ex- 
ternal action  is  concerned,  but  at  least  so  far  as 
moral  character  is  concerned.  After  his  de- 
termined "I  won't,"  the  youth  may  err,  but 
quite  in  spite  of  himself.  He  would  err,  of 
course,  simply  for  the  reason  that  "  I  will  "  and 


214  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

"I  won't"  have  the  effect  of  holding  in  mind 
the  very  thing  not  to  be  done,  and,  interest 
being  a  source  at  least  of  action,  if  not  of  will, 
his  resolution  falls  before  the  retained  idea.  A 
cashier,  for  example,  who  persistently  says  that 
he  will  not  take  the  bank's  money,  is  already  in 
one  of  the  stages  of  embezzlement.  And  yet, 
to  repeat,  on  the  theory  of  will  as  arbitrary,  his 
persistent  "  I  won't "  ought  to  relieve  him  from 
further  responsibility.  His  spirit  is  so  willing ; 
only  his  flesh  is  weak ;  so  that,  not  upon  him, 
but  upon  circumstances,  lies  the  blame.  In  the 
moral  life,  in  fine,  one  must  always  take  the 
will  for  the  deed;  and,  if  taking,  of  course 
also  offer  it. 

Taking  or  offering  the  will  for  the  deed  is 
exactly  what  the  theory  of  a  creative  or  initia- 
tive will  leads  to ;  and,  accordingly,  under  this 
theory  any  creature  at  any  time  should  be  able 
to  do  anything,  or  at  least  should  have  and 
claim  credit  for  such  a  universal  ability.  Any- 
body could  preach,  be  president,  practise  medi- 
cine, study  metaphysics,  or  even  work  on  a 
railroad.  The  shivering  poor,  in  midwinter, 
would  be  able  to  bask  in  summer's  sunshine, 
and  accordingly  by  the  rich  should  be  treated 
as  always  warm;  and  the  city  child,  dreaming 
of  the  fragrant  woods  and  hillsides,  could  go 


WILL.  215 

forth  at  once  and  gather  the  nodding  flowers. 
Bad  characters,  too,  merely  by  taking  thought 
could  add  cubits  to  their  moral  stature;  and 
good  characters  could  perform  bad  deeds  with 
impunity.  But  are  such  possibilities  as  these 
the  needs,  the  necessary  conditions,  of  a  moral 
life?  Is  society  at  the  present  time  in  any  sub- 
stantial and  positive  way  moral,  because  these 
possibilities  are  given  the  semblance  of  reality? 
Is  taking  the  mere  will  for  the  deed  effecting 
anything  like  a  moral  regeneration?  The  ques- 
tions carry  their  own  answers ;  and  here  for  the 
sake  of  a  moral  order  and  of  a  substantial  moral 
responsibility,  as  above  for  the  sake  of  a  con- 
sistent tenable  theory,  we  have  to  conclude 
that  will  is  action  and  action  will.  To  separate 
will  from  action  is  to  teach  determinism  and 
irresponsibility. 

Here  is  a  racer  toeing  the  mark  in  readiness 
for  a  race.  At  the  appointed  signal  he  dashes 
across  the  line  and  out  upon  the  course;  but 
who  that  knows  how  strained  his  muscles  are, 
even  while  he  waits,  and  how  his  chest  rises  and 
falls,  and  how  his  blood  presses  in  his  veins,  can 
fail  to  believe  that  he  is  already  in  the  race  be- 
fore he  "wills"  to  run?  At  the  signal,  then, 
he  only  wills  to  do  what  he  already  is  doing, 
while  before  the  signal  he  is  only  running  the 


2l6  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

race  to  himself,  or  thinking  or  "  naming"  it; 
and,  in  general,  will  is  never  of  anything  but 
what  the  agent  is  already  doing.  Will  mediates 
existing  activity,  it  does  not  create  activity.  A 
young  man  stands  at  what  the  commencement 
orators  call  the  brink  of  life,  and  must  choose 
what  he  will  do,  what  he  will  be ;  but  neither 
can  he  nor  will  he  choose  to  be  what  he  is  not, 
or  to  do  what  he  is  not  already  doing.  His  own 
real  choice  will  lie  in  a  volition  to  do  what  he  is 
doing  and  has  been  doing.  It  might,  then,  be 
well  for  society  to  recognize  this  in  planning  for 
his  education ;  and  it  is  certainly  idle  for  others 
to  choose  for  him.  Of  course,  had  he  an  arbi- 
trary will,  he  could  assume  successfully  what- 
ever way  of  life  might  be  thought  wise  for  him ; 
but  in  the  absence  of  such  a  will,  another's 
choosing  for  him  only  gives  him  a  uniform  that 
never  fits.  Creatures  in  misfit  uniforms,  how- 
ever, are  beggars.  Any  man  whose  life  differs 
from  his  choice,  or  whose  avowal  differs  from 
his  will,  is  a  beggar;  and  in  human  relations, 
the  effect  of  supposing  will  a  separate  creative 
power  is  to  induce,  not  freedom  and  responsi- 
bility, but  beggary, —  intellectual  and  moral  and 
religious  beggary. 

Because   will     is    mediative,    not    materially 
creative,   wholly  external  consequences  of  ac- 


WILL. 


217 


tion  are  quite  impossible.  After  action  the 
agent  can  never  claim  a  lofty  irresponsibility, 
exclaiming  with  reference  to  certain  unfortunate 
results,  "  I  did  not  mean  to."  Whatever  is 
done  is  meant,  and  whatever  one  does  shows 
just  what  one  is.  The  underlying  principle  is 
that  the  very  fact  of  action  proves  its  results 
were  intended,  since  merely  to  be  able  to  act 
in  a  given  set  of  conditions  is  to  know  before- 
hand how  the  conditions  themselves  may  act. 
In  a  life  that  is  essentially  organic,  that  in- 
volves the  original  adjustment  of  an  agent  to 
his  environment,  action  is  most  assuredly  more 
than  a  mere  blind  gambling.  Indeed,  even 
at  Monte  Carlo,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  blind 
gambling.  The  player  wills  to  accept  what- 
ever lot  the  wheel  may  turn.  Similarly,  to 
take  a  timely  illustration  from  the  more  normal 
life,  the  cyclist,  speeding  around  the  corner 
and  knowing  exactly  what  may  happen,  wills 
the  turning  of  his  fateful  wheel  and  cannot  say 
in  the  event  of  a  collision  that  he  meant  no 
one  any  harm.  Any  agent  means  whatever 
he  knows  may  happen,  and  he  knows  what 
may  happen  if  he  be  really  an  agent.  Monte 
Carlo,  then,  is  more  than  a  mere  locality  where 
a  peculiar  life  is  cultivated ;  it  is  born  of  gen- 
erally existing  social  conditions,  being  only  an 


2l8  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

abstraction  for  something  very  wide-spread. 
Certain  reformers  may  loudly  and  holily  con- 
demn the  place,  but  not  with  any  very  telling 
effect,  if  they  too  assume  that  life's  incidents 
are  external  to  life  itself,  that  the  future  is  not 
in  the  present,  or  that  will  belongs  to  a  separate 
soul.  Of  their  dualism  the  life  at  Monte  Carlo 
is  but  a  startling  parody,  although,  as  said  be- 
fore, even  there  a  complete  separation  of  will 
and  action  has  not  been  found  possible.  What 
the  gambling  spirit  of  our  time  needs  is  not 
the  preaching  of  unworldly  idealists,  but  the 
removal  of  the  many  barriers  to  its  suffering 
more  speedily  the  consequences  of  its  actions. 
Church  and  bank  and  state  have  helped  in 
countless  ways  to  foster  it,  and  many  are  the 
conventions  in  family  life  and  in  education  and 
in  "  society  "  that  strengthen  its  conviction  of 
irresponsibility.  Strangely  enough,  at  Monte 
Carlo  the  life  avenges  itself  promptly,  while  in 
normal  life  the  mediation  is  slow;  so  that 
society  would  seem  to  be  sacrificing  some  of 
its  members  to  the  continuation  of  its  own 
sinfulness.  This,  however,  only  means  that 
society  also  has  a  mediating  will,  since  its 
sacrifices  are  bound  in  time  to  induce  control. 


CHAPTER    XVIII. 

THE   LIVING   IDEAL. 

THE  "  World  of  Acts  "  is  pre-eminently  the 
world  of  morals  and  religion,  and  were 
we  to  select  from  all  that  has  gone  before  the 
special  conclusions  that  have  the  most  direct 
bearing  upon  the  moral  and  spiritual  life,  the 
originality  of  the  self's  adjustment  to  its  environ- 
ment and  the  responsible  mediation  of  will 
would  be,  I  think,  the  ones  taken.  True,  these 
two  are  in  reality  but  a  single  conclusion,  and 
the  many  others  can  be  drawn  from  them 
very  quickly;  but  these  especially  affect  one's 
doctrine  of  personal  conduct,  because  they 
face  so  directly  the  standpoints  of  Determin- 
ism and  Indeterminism,  of  Materialism  and 
Supernaturalism. 

Making  adjustment  original  or,  as  the  same 
thing,  finding  in  environment  a  living  mediator, 
is  fatal  to  Determinism  and  Materialism,  and 
making  will  substantially  responsible  is  equally 
fatal   to   Indeterminism    and    Supernaturalism. 


220  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

In  a  word,  the  simple  evidence  of  our  conclu- 
sions is  that  the  self's  activity  is  controlled  from 
without  neither  in  the  way  of  an  external  and 
physically  determining  environment  nor  in  the 
way  of  a  separate  and  arbitrary  soul.  The  self's 
activity  controls  itself.  Whatever  determination 
there  is,  is  intrinsic. 

Also  in  the  originality  of  adjustment,  or  the 
living  mediation  of  environment,  and  in  the  sub- 
stantial responsibility  of  will,  we  see  that  the 
ideal  of  the  self's  activity  is  real  and  living,  even 
while  it  is  ideal.  Moreover,  the  importance  of 
this  fact  to  the  personal  life  can  hardly  be  over- 
estimated. Not  to  secure  or  create  new  activity, 
but  to  fulfil  the  activity  that  already  is ;  not  to 
become  a  new  creature,  but  to  prove  the  old 
creature ;  not  to  save  to  the  worldly  self  a  sep- 
arate unworldly  soul,  but  to  express  the  saved 
self  that  already  is,  —  this  is  what  each  living 
being  has  ever  to  do,  this  is  the  only  urgency 
that  the  ideal  imposes.  The  ideal  is  itself  the 
activity,  or  the  saved  self,  that  already  is.  The 
Christian  knows  what  it  is  to  have  the  ideal  real 
and  living;  and  our  thinking  in  these  pages,  as 
if  in  justification  of  Christianity,  has  only  applied 
the  Christian's  belief  to  all  the  reaches  of  human 
interest,  nay,  to  all  the  reaches  of  life  in  its  en- 
tirety.    As  man  is  larger  than  men,  so  Christian- 


THE  LIVING  IDEAL.  221 

ity  is  larger  than  man.  Environment  is  a  living 
mediator,  a  word  incarnate. 

Of  course  the  living  ideal  is  personal,  and 
in  its  own  right.  An  external  ideal,  fixed  and 
lifeless,  belonging  to  the  long-ago  past  or  the 
far-away  future,  would  be  impersonal,  tyran- 
nical, impossible,  and  so  would  depend  on  per- 
sonification. But  a  living  ideal,  to  repeat,  is 
personal,  and,  being  personal  in  its  own  right, 
changes.  It  changes  relatively  to  the  life  that  it 
controls.  Personality  is  always  a  relationship, 
not  a  lifeless  unrelated  thing ;  and  relationship 
requires  change.  If  the  criterion  of  the  truth  of 
an  idea  is  its  value  as  a  plan  that  liberates  will,  or 
makes  possible  the  application  of  force,  then  in 
like  manner  the  criterion  of  the  personal  reality 
of  an  ideal  is  its  value  as  a  way  of  life  that  medi- 
ates action.  Religion  then  is  not  now,  and  it 
never  has  been,  the  more  or  less  arbitrary  per- 
sonification of  nature.  It  is  and  it  always  has 
been  a  personal  relationship  to  nature. 

And  what  this  all  leads  to,  psychologically, 
is  simply  that  a  sense  of  personal  relationship 
is  intrinsic  to  the  consciousness  of  an  environ- 
ment. Thus,  environment  as  other-than-the-self 
or  as  objective,  the  otherness  or  the  objec- 
tivity being  but  a  vital  incident  of  the  individ- 
ual self's  own  organic   life,  must   itself  be  of 


222  DYNAMIC  IDEALISM. 

personal  value  and  meaning  to  the  individual,  and 
must  be  also  the  sphere  of  other  organic  lives  in 
themselves  personally  significant  and  valuable 
too.  When,  in  an  earlier  chapter,  we  found 
that  environment,  or  language,  had  a  triple 
function,  being  at  once  objectively  descriptive, 
socially  mediative,  and  individually  redemptive, 
we  really  had  this  same  personality,  which  is 
fundamental  in  environment,  before  us;  but 
here  the  fact  is  possibly  even  clearer  than  it 
was  then.  The  single  doctrine,  of  more  re- 
cent pages,  that  will  is  mediative,  not  arbitrary, 
is  conclusive  evidence  that  personality  in  the 
outer  world  is  not  the  creation  of  imagination 
or  after-thought.  Personality,  whether  in  one's 
fellows  or  in  one's  whole  environment,  cannot 
be  thought  to  be  due  to  any  such  subtle  pro- 
cess as  projection  of  self,  or  ejection,  or  even 
injection,1  or  finally  to  anything  else  equally 
violent.  As  said  before,  man  does  not  now, 
and  in  the  past  never  has  personified  his  en- 
vironment, but  he  is  and  always  has  been  per- 
sonally related  to  it,  and  he  does  not,  as  if  at 
a  time  of  special  interest  and  good-will,  person- 
ify his  fellows,  but  has  to  them  also  an  original 
personal  relation. 

1  The  inject >  I  believe,  is  yet  to  come  to  the  mystification 
of  philosophy. 


THE  LIVING  IDEAL.  223 

The  World  of  Acts,  then,  is  a  world  of 
persons.  Personality,  which  is  only  the  act- 
uality of  relationship  under  a  new  name,  is  its 
substance.  And  if  to  anybody  this  means 
that  God  is  alive  on  earth,  the  Living  Ideal, 
then  the  study  now  concluded  will  simply  have 
turned  from  psychology  to  theology. 


APPENDIX. 

A  STUDY  OF  IMMORTALITY  IN 
OUTLINE. 


'5 


APPENDIX. 

A  STUDY  OF  IMMORTALITY  IN   OUTLINE.1 


AT  the  present  time  there  are  indications,  which 
any  who  look  can  see,  that  human  thought  and 
human  life  are  entering  upon  a  new  era,  or  permit  me 
to  say  upon  a  new  dynasty.  It  may,  of  course,  be 
that  at  any  time  evidences  of  an  important  transition 
can  be  found;  but  should  that  be  the  case,  one's 
responsibility  to  the  changes  of  one's  own  time  is 
made  only  truer  and  greater. 

The  present  dynasty  began,  as  historians  have  very 
generally  agreed,  with  certain  early  Greeks,  and  rose 
to  its  greatest  glory  and  power  in  the  days  of  imperial 
Rome,  at  once  political  and  religious,  temporal  and 
spiritual,  in  her  authority;  and  from  Romanism,  not 
specifically  as  a  visible  institution,  but  as  an  all-per- 
vading social  condition,  the  present  time  is  not  by 
any  means  free,  although  a  process  of  liberation  is 
going  on.  When  the  liberation  is  fulfilled,  then  the 
new  dynasty  will  appear,  and  upon  appearance  will 

1  This  u  Study "  was  written  independently  of  the  present 
book,  but  it  is  appended  here  as  a  serviceable  supplement  to 
chapter  xi.  on  "Body,  Mind,  Soul." 


228  APPENDIX. 

of  course  be  found  to  have  begun  even  in  what  is 
now  the  prehistoric  past. 

Contemporaneity  sets  the  temporal  as  well  as  the 
spatial  or  territorial  bounds  of  a  dynasty.  Thus, 
Greek  thought  and  life  and  our  present  thought  and 
life  are  fundamentally  contemporaneous,  and  with 
them  or  with  their  sovereignty  we  connect  certain 
more  or  less  closely  related  parts  of  the  earth's  surface. 
The  Greeks  and  ourselves  have  been  under  the  control 
of  the  same  idea  of  the  self,  as  body  or  as  mind  or  as 
soul.  And  as  for  a  change  of  dynasty,  this  means, 
as  has  been  hinted  in  part  already,  not  only  (i)  the 
rise  of  a  new  visible  sovereign,  but  also  (2)  a  virtual 
extension  into  earlier  times  of  the  recognized  "  line 
of  succession,"  a  new  dynasty  always  overlapping  at 
both  ends  the  supplanted  one,  and  (3)  a  widening  of 
the  directly  controlled  domain.  In  general,  change 
always  deepens,  and  deepening  brings  fulfilment,  not 
overthrow,  and  fulfilment,  by  revealing  the  "  prehis- 
toric "  past,  makes  it  henceforth  a  vital  part  of  the 
controlling  present,  and  by  displacing  the  existing  life 
from  its  more  or  less  limited  part  of  the  earth's  terri- 
tory relates  it  positively  to  other  parts  that  were  for- 
mally closed  to  it.  The  historic  past  and  the  historic 
future  —  for  of  course  there  is  always  the  latter  in 
connection  with  the  former  —  are  bounded,  very 
much  as  the  ends  of  that  history  in  miniature,  the 
vari- colored  spectrum,  are  bounded,  by  the  nature, 
which  is  of  course  the  sovereignty,  of  the  observing 
self. 

Now,  at  the  present  time  a  new  idea  of  the  self,  or 


APPENDIX.  229 

rather  a  new  self,  is  threatening  the  reigning  sovereign. 
Psychologists,  for  example,  are  already  at  a  real  vari- 
ance with  the  long-standing  separation  of  feeling, 
whether  of  body  or  of  soul,  and  reason ;  and  the 
historians  of  antiquity,  as  if  wholly  in  sympathy  with 
psychology,  are  no  longer  satisfied  with  a  formal 
paragraph  or  two,  or  even  with  a  formal  chapter  or 
two,  on  the  emotional,  sensuous,  nature- enslaved, 
pantheistic  life  of  the  Orient;  and,  politically,  the 
Eastern  Question  is  one  of  the  most  living  questions 
of  the  day.1 

But  a  change  of  sovereignty  at  any  time  must  intro- 
duce, in  company  with  the  new  self,  also  new  views 
of  life  and  death,  of  immortality  and  mortality. 
Thus,  at  the  present  time,  to  bring  body  and  soul 
into  a  real  or  positive  relation,  to  make  the  soul  not 
only  in  but  also  of  the  body,  to  find  mind  essential  to 
both  soul  and  body,  is  very  plainly  to  alter  radi- 
cally the  meaning  of  the  antithesis  between  the  here 
and  the  hereafter.  So,  for  a  time  abandoning  the 
more  general  standpoint  with  which  we  have  begun, 
let  us  turn  specifically  to  this  antithesis  and  its  more 
immediate  incidents.  What  has  its  meaning  been, 
and  what  is  its  meaning  getting  to  be? 

1  To  hint,  as  here,  that  the  psychological  question  of  the 
relation  of  emotion,  sensuous  or  spiritual,  to  reason  is  really  a 
phase  of  the  Eastern  Question,  may  seem  to  some  very  far- 
fetched indeed ;  but  the  past  history  of  psychology  in  its  relation 
to  politics  is  the  only  justification  that  I  need  for  this  merely 
apparent  absurdity. 


230  APPENDIX. 


II. 


Plato's  demonstration  of  the  soul's  immortality 
very  well  represents  the  idea  of  life  and  death  that  has 
prevailed.  In  this  demonstration  Plato  at  once  epito- 
mized the  fall  of  his  own  native  Greece,  and  gave  report 
of  the  rise  of  conquering  Rome.  Thus  he  said  :  The 
composite  or  divisible  dies,  but  the  simple  or  indi- 
visible lives;  and,  as  if  at  a  stroke,  for  which  the 
changes  of  history  had  been  preparing  for  six  centu- 
ries or  more,  he  therein  made  soul  and  body  two,  not 
one,  and  mind,  external  to  either,  the  arbitrary  law  of 
the  body  and  the  empty,  unsubstantial  form  of  the 
soul ;  and  so  even  invited  Rome  to  the  conquest  of 
Greece. 

That  Plato's  mortal  body  and  immortal  soul  and 
external  or  abstract  mind  are  those  of  current  belief 
must  be  apparent  to  all,  and  that  they  have  been  the 
foundations  of  the  still  surviving  condition  of  Roman- 
ism is  a  matter  of  well-known  history.  An  infallible 
or  irresponsible  reason,  an  irrational  faith,  and  a  law- 
less body,  —  these  are  at  once  the  widely  current  pre- 
suppositions of  social  life  and  the  working  hypotheses 
of  historical  record.  We  still  live,  so  this  means,  a 
life  that  is  external  both  to  its  conditions  and  to  its 
results;  we  live  even  now  in  another  world,  wholly 
apart  from  this ;  and  accordingly  another  world,  an 
hereafter  that  has  no  positive  relation  to  the  here,  that 
is  merely  added  on  from  without,  is  not  perhaps  our 


APPENDIX.  23 1 

only  goal,  but  is  at  least  commonly  supposed  to  be 
our  only  spiritual  goal.  In  this  world,  because  it  is 
composite,  its  parts  being  only  formally  and  so  at  best 
only  temporally  related,  we  are  dead  or  at  least  dying. 
Even  recent  Biology,  as  if  under  the  spell  of  Platonism, 
has  made  the  life  of  an  organism  external  to  its  inci- 
dents, persistently  treating  the  physical  environment 
as  essentially  inorganic. 

But,  as  all  are  aware,  more  than  eighteen  centuries 
ago  Christianity  came  as  a  protest  against  Plato's 
standpoint.  Apart  from  its  theological  terms,  it  was 
a  doctrine  of  life  on  earth,  of  the  spiritual  as  not  only 
in  but  also  of  the  physical,  of  the  simple  and  immortal 
as  in  some  real  way  not  opposed  to  the  physical  and 
mortal,  of  this  world  and  the  other  world  as  not  two 
but  one.  "  Now  is  the  accepted  time ;  now  is  the 
day  of  salvation."  "  Inasmuch  as  ye  have  done  it 
unto  one  of  these,  my  brethren,  even  these  least,  ye 
have  done  it  unto  me."  "  I  am  the  way,  the  truth, 
and  the  life  ;  no  man  cometh  unto  the  Father  but  by 
me." 

As  for  Romanism,1  this  has  rested  in  the  literal 
Christ,  not  in  the  spiritual ;  in  the  deified  man,  not  in 
the  God.  Moreover,  if  one  may  so  speak,  the  mis- 
take of  history,  religious  or  political  or  intellectual, 
has  been  the  mistake  of  literalism.  Whatever  it  may 
have  meant  to  Plato  or   to   Rome,  to    Christianity 

1  It  must  be  kept  in  mind  that  by  Romanism  is  always 
meant  here  an  all-pervading  social  condition,  not  any  visible 
institution.  As  just  now  hinted,  even  Biology  has  entertained 
Romanism  or  Platonism. 


232  APPENDIX. 

denial  of  the  world  did  not  mean  a  spiritual  isolation. 
Christianity  was  a  fulfilment,  and  it  was  so  presented 
by  its  Prophet.  The  Christian  negation  of  the  com- 
posite, of  the  mortal  body,  intended  something  else 
than  assertion  of  a  separate  world  for  the  simple  and 
immortal,  and  Christianity,  in  the  face  of  centuries  of 
resistance  and  unappreciative  interpretation  has  strug- 
gled to  make  this  something  else  explicit.  But  what 
else?  Why,  nothing  more  nor  less  than  that  the 
physical  itself  is  not  composite,  not  a  thing  of  exter- 
nally or  only  formally  related  parts,  not  dead  nor 
even  dying,  but  organic  and  so  always  living ;  and 
into  this  more  truly  Christian  idea  of  life,  into  the  ful- 
filling Christianity,  as  if  an  inheritance  from  long  ago, 
we  are  entering  to-day.  Soul  as  the  substantial  reality, 
the  fulfilling  life  of  the  body,  or  life  as  responsible  to 
its  incidents,  or  body  as  organic,  is  the  rising  sover- 
eign of  the  new  dynasty. 


III. 


I  pass  by  the  evidences  of  the  change  in  social  and 
political  life  and  those  even  in  the  doctrines  of  pres- 
ent-day ethics  and  theology.  I  refrain,  too,  from  any 
special  mention  of  the  more  recent  doctrines  in  psy- 
chology of  emotion,  of  knowledge,  or  of  will.  I  go 
directly  to  the  physical  sciences  for  the  witness,  which 
they  bear,  that  matter,  the  physical,  can  no  longer  be 
conceived  as  lifeless, — that  is,  as  composed  of  ele- 
ments, —  but  must  be  recognized  as  alive  and  organic. 


APPENDIX.  233 

Thus,  Chemistry  has  indeed  entertained  for  a  long  time 
the  doctrine  of  a  conserved  matter  in  connection  with 
its  doctrine  of  atoms,  and  until  comparatively  recent 
times  a  conserved  matter  has  been  rather  a  negative 
than  a  positive  idea,  standing  for  the  simple  as  non- 
composite,  and  only  serving  as  a  corrective,  although 
an  unappreciated  corrective,  of  the  retained  standpoint 
of  atomism;  but  to-day  Chemistry  has  completely 
subordinated  mere  elemental  composition  to  an 
organizing  or  interrelating  process  and  has  so  ar- 
rived at,  or  all  but  arrived  at,  a  truly  positive  mean- 
ing for  matter  as  conserved  and  indivisible.  What 
else,  for  example,  but  that  matter  is  literally,  actually, 
essentially  organic  can  be  meant  by  the  thorough- 
going application  of  mathematics  to  chemical  phe- 
nomena, or  by  the  notion  of  an  evolutional  order  in 
the  different  elements?  The  space  and  the  time  in 
which  mathematics  thinks  are  not  composite  but 
indivisible,  or  at  once  relational  and  dynamic, —  that  is 
to  say,  organic,  —  and  an  evolutional  order  must  mean, 
among  other  things,  that  quality  and  substance  are 
inseparable.  To  relate  atoms  in  any  way  is  to  destroy 
their  atomic  or  elemental  character.  Chemistry, 
then,  as  mathematical  and  evolutional,  is  dividing  its 
own  atom  —  out  of  existence. 

And  Physics,  instead  of  any  longer  identifying  force 
with  matter  in  ?notion,  as  if  matter  and  motion  were 
altogether  separate  realities,  has  virtually  gotten  rid 
of  its  dualism,  or,  to  be  still  more  specific,  instead  of 
depending  on  the  trinity  of  (1)  a  spaceless  and  time- 
less  or   indivisible   medium,   motionless   and    inert, 


234  APPENDIX. 

(2)  a  dividing  vibration  in  a  divisible  space  and 
time,  which  has  been  saved  from  its  own  absurdity 
only  by  the  indivisible  medium,  and  (3)  a  physical 
force  or  quality  external  alike  to  the  substantiating 
medium  and  the  mediating  vibration,  has  now  a  con- 
ception of  quality  or  force  that  —  not  to  mention 
other  results  —  makes  the  notion  of  an  abstract 
merely  underlying  medium  untenable.  As  a  mathe- 
matical and  evolutional  chemistry  no  longer  needs 
a  conserved  matter,  so  a  physics,  that  has  also  turned 
mathematical  and  that  has  no  doctrine  so  important 
as  that  of  the  mutability  of  forces,  can  do  without  the 
indivisible  impenetrable  medium.  Not  only  are  the 
physical  qualities,  which  have  all  been  found  to  be 
incidents,  although  external  incidents,  of  vibrations 
of  one  sort  or  another,  recognized  as  reducible  to  one, 
but  also  in  proportion  as  the  vibrations  are  short  and 
rapid  and  lateral  the  quality  generated  is  supposed  to 
be  an  important  condition  of  organic  life.  In  short, 
the  ultimate  physical  quality,  as  it  were  the  limit, 
wherein  medium  and  vibration  and  quality  are  finally 
identified,  must  be  life  itself. 

What  wonder,  then,  that  Biology  is  saying  in  so 
many  ways  that  Physics  and  particularly  Chemistry 
must  be  appealed  to  for  light  upon  the  central  biolo- 
gical problems.  Like  the  other  world,  or  the  im- 
mortal soul  of  Plato,  Chemistry's  conserved  matter 
and  Physics'  underlying  medium  have  been  but  gods 
worshipped  in  ignorance,  indirections  or  abstrac- 
tions for  the  persistent  fact  of  organic  life.  Biol- 
ogy, however,  as  might  be  expected,  and  as  has  been 


APPENDIX.  235 

remarked  already,  has  not  been  without  its  own  Pla- 
tonism.  Particularly  in  its  "  vital  unit,"  an  indefinitely 
small  part,  —  to-day  smaller  even  than  the  discovered 
cell,  and  for  that  matter  always  smaller  than  any 
known  part,  —  Biology  has  fallen  into  the  error  of 
a  pure  lifeless  abstraction  for  the  living  and  organic ; 
and  the  inorganic  environment,  already  referred  to, 
also  shows  how  the  science  of  life  has  been  asleep  to 
its  own  presuppositions.  Simply,  if  environment  be 
related  to  life,  it  must  itself  be  organic  —  indeed,  is 
not  every  organism  itself  a  natural  part  of  its  own  so- 
called  environment?  —  and,  to  return  to  the  other 
point,  if  really  alive,  the  "vital  unit"  can  hardly  be 
a  thing  for  microscopic  discovery.  The  simple- 
minded  dogma  that  the  "  vital  unit "  is  immortal 
is  as  delightful  a  bit  of  supernaturalism  as  recent 
times  have  afforded.  As  a  paradox,  however,  true 
in  spite  of  itself,  it  precipitates  the  new  era.  The 
divinity  of  the  man  Christ  was  the  same  paradox, 
as  it  came  to  human  experience  centuries  ago.  Not 
an  organism,  as  some  specific  portion  of  matter,  large 
or  small,  but  the  organic  is  immortal. 

So,  in  summary,  whatever  immortality  has  been 
ascribed  to  an  immaterial  soul  or  to  a  conserved 
matter,  to  a  "  vital  unit "  or  to  an  underlying  me- 
dium, belongs  to  the  living  and  organic,  for  which 
these  several  immortals  —  I  was  tempted  to  entitle 
this  study  "  With  the  Immortals  "  —  have  been  sheer 
indirections.1     In  the  sense  of  the  material  as  com- 

1  Sometimes  called  working  hypotheses,  or  Hiilfsbegriffe, 
which  they  certainly  are. 


236  APPENDIX. 

posite,  the  soul,  the  immortal  self,  is  indeed  immate- 
rial ;  but  in  reality  the  material  is  not  composite  but 
organic,  so  that  the  soul  can  be  said  to  be  at  once 
material  and  immortal.  The  composite  may  decom- 
pose, and  decomposition  is  death,  but  the  organic 
never  dies. 


IV. 


But  what,  asks  somebody,  is  to  become  of  personal 
or  individual  immortality  ?  Well,  that  certainly  is  not 
lost  here,  but  is  assured,  as  never  before.  An  im- 
material soul  is  not  now  at  all  necessary  to  a  belief  in 
individual  immortality,  unless,  forsooth,  in  the  very 
face  of  Christianity  and  in  the  very  face  of  the  latest 
science,  one  insist  that  individuals  are  atoms  or  are, 
at  least  as  manifested  in  this  world's  time  and  space, 
only  their  visible  bodies.  Individuality  or  personality 
is  relationship  as  something  actual  and  substantial, 
and  relationship  is  never  lost.  The  very  fulfilment  or 
substantiation  of  a  relationship  involves  a  separation 
of  the  individual  from  anything  like  a  confining  body. 
Organic  life  involves  change,  decay,  a  certain  kind  of 
death  ;  but  the  organic  relations,  that  make  or  that  are 
individuals,  survive  even  the  most  radical  changes.1 
The  organic,  then,  is  a  constant  triumph  over  death, 
and  above  all  over  the  death  of  individuals.  Also  — 
and  this  should  be  reflected  upon,  as  showing  so  posi- 

1  This,  obviously  enough,  is  as  true  in  the  phenomena  of 
Chemistry  and  Physics  and  Biology  as  it  is  true  in  those  of 
human  society. 


APPENDIX.  237 

lively  what  individuality  is  —  it  is  a  constant  triumph 
over  birth.  Individuals  neither  die  nor  come  into 
being. 

To  any  one  who  still  recognizes  no  criterion  of  in- 
dividuality but  that  of  mere  physical  or  spatial  and  tem- 
poral isolation,  the  foregoing  will  be  only  so  many 
empty  words,  but  the  true  Christian  out  of  his  own 
experience  can  interpret  my  meaning.  In  which 
sense  was  Christ  an  individual?  If  in  that  of  physi- 
cal isolation,  he  certainly  was  not  immaculately  con- 
ceived and  he  certainly  did  not  rise  from  the  dead, 
but  if  in  that  of  organic  relationship  he  was  not  born 
as  are  men  and  he  lives  now  and  is  the  sovereign  of 
the  present  life.  Too  many  that  call  themselves  Chris- 
tians forget  the  birth  and  the  resurrection,  or,  if  not 
forgetting,  only  parody  them  into  a  physical  appear- 
ance and  reappearance  nearly  two  thousand  years  ago. 
Science,  always  getting  its  habit  of  mind  from  religion, 
has  made  a  parody  of  them  too. 

So  now  we  can  conclude,  summarily,  that  the  an- 
tithesis between  the  here  and  the  hereafter  is  not,  at 
least  for  the  now  rising  dynasty,  between  this  world 
and  another  or  between  the  present  and  an  wholly 
separate  future,  but  between  two  perfectly  real  and 
contemporaneous  aspects  of  the  world  that  now  is. 
Does  the  eternity,  into  which  at  what  is  called  death 
we  are  said  to  pass,  begin  after  the  life  here  is 
ended?  By  no  means.  Eternity  now  is,  and  is, 
not  in  the  sense  of  a  time  which  can  find  for  itself 
no  content  in  the  present  life,  but  in  that  of  a  time 
whose  content  is  the  present  life.     "The  Kingdom 


238  APPENDIX. 

of  Heaven  is  at  hand."  At  what  we  call  death  we 
do  not  leave  this  earth,  but  enter  into  it.  Our  death 
is  our  life  in  it ;  not  our  burial,  but  our  resurrection. 
How  can  that  which  was  never  born  of  woman 
die? 


To  some,  perhaps  to  very  many,  the  view  of  im- 
mortality here  outlined  will  seem  to  be  (1)  the  doc- 
trine of  Metempsychosis,  or  (2)  only  the  Positivistic 
doctrine  of  a  death- surviving  "  influence,"  or  (3) 
what  is  known  most  commonly  as  Spiritualism.  No 
one  of  these  interpretations,  however,  is  at  all  ade- 
quate, since  all  show  a  virtual  return  to  the  un- 
christian notion  of  the  individual  as  determined  by 
an  isolated  body,  and  so  to  the  separation  of  soul 
from  body  or  of  quality,  which  is  "  influence,"  both 
from  that  which  has  it  and  from  that  which  gener- 
ates it. 

The  view  here  outlined  is  not  Metempsychosis 
nor  Positivism  nor  Spiritualism,  but  it  is  the  inner 
truth  of  all  these  partial  views.  Thus,  it  does  free 
the  soul  from  a  confining  body,  and  teach  that  in- 
fluence is  immortal,  and  even  that  the  dead  communi- 
cate with  the  living;  but  it  says  that  the  freedom, 
which  is  really  from  only  when  also  in  the  body, 
is  as  real  before  death  as  after,  and  that  both  per- 
sonality and  "  influence "  survive,  the  two  being 
one.   Spiritualism  and  Positivism  are  mutually  comple- 


APPENDIX.  239 

mentary  and  corrective,  the  former  very  properly 
insisting  that  the  surviving  influence  is  of  a  real 
substantial  individual,  and  the  latter  that  the  sur- 
viving individual  is  not  an  immaterial  spirit,  the 
soul's  substance  being  the  organic,  not  the  imma- 
terial; and  Metempsychosis,  in  which  is  evident  a 
formal  conciliation  of  Positivism  and  Spiritualism, 
is  right  in  keeping  the  hereafter  here,  but  wrong 
in  retaining  the  merely  physical  criterion  of  indi- 
viduality. The  soul's  transmigration  is  not  a  passage 
from  one  body  to  another,  but,  so  far  as  it  can  be 
physically  recounted,  the  organic  union  of  two  in  a 
third.1 

Even  Plato  taught  Metempsychosis  at  one  time 
in  his  life,  —  at  the  time  when  he  was  interested  in 
transporting  Greek  life  to  Sicily,  where  he  hoped 
to  establish  the  ideal  state ;  but  afterwards  he  came 
to  see  that  the  future  home  of  the  Greek  was  not  in 
another  wholly  separate  body,  and  Rome  came  finally, 
as  if  the  third  body,  including  and  so  relating  Greece 
and  Plato's  Sicily.  Moreover,  that  Rome  was  the 
realization  of  the  ideal  Greek  state  is  one  of  the 
commonplaces  of  history.  Significantly  enough,  too, 
it  appears  that  Metempsychosis  was  taught  long 
before  Plato's  time,  when  the  Greek  communities 
in  Asia  Minor  and  on  the  farther  islands  of  the 
^Egean  Sea  were  sending  out  colonies  or  themselves 
moving  bodily  to  the  west,  so  that  Plato's  ideal  was 

1  Compare  the  account  of  motion  as  not  a  passing  from  one 
point  to  another,  but  a  relating  of  two  separate  points  to  a 
third.    The  infinitesimal  of  pure  mechanics  has  made  it  this. 


240  APPENDIX. 

no  visionary  one.  The  very  migration  that  he 
thought  of  had  already  taken  place,  and  Rome 
came  in  evidence  of  it.  In  a  word,  then,  Greece 
was  already  in  the  west  before  she  finally  migrated 
thither;  or,  when  she  finally  migrated  thither,  she 
did  not  leave  her  own  home. 


VI. 


And,  finally,  again  to  venture  a  remark  or  two 
upon  the  political  significance  of  the  new  —  or  is  it 
really  only  the  "  prehistoric  "  ?  —  view  of  life  and 
death,1  other-worldliness  or  supernaturalism  is  evi- 
dently a  necessary  standpoint,  when  the  life  of  any 
part,  large  or  small,  is  isolated  from  any  other  part  of 
the  whole  sphere  of  life.  Isolation  of  the  Greek  from 
the  Barbarian  led  finally  to  Plato's  Athens,  where  the 
Greek  found  himself  separated  even  from  himself, 
and  the  isolation  of  Christendom  from  the  uncivilized 
and  unchristian  parts  of  the  earth  is  responsible  for 
our  modern  Platonism.  Belief  in  another  world,  how- 
ever, is  the  natural  corrective  of  partiality  in  this,  the 
other  world  believed  in  being  only  the  unity  of  this, 
so  that,  as  was  suggested  at  the  beginning,  our  present- 
day  supernaturalism  and  the  closed  life  of  the  Orient 
are  but  two  phases  of  one  experience,  and  with  the 
decline  of  supernaturalism  will  come,  is  coming,  the 
opening  of  the  Orient.     Has  not   all  Christendom 

1  The  "  prehistoric  "  life  and  death  have  always  been  those 
of  a  "  Golden  Age." 


APPENDIX.  241 

owed  its  belief  in  immortality  to  the  unchristian 
Orient  ?  Strange  indeed  are  the  paradoxes  of  history  ! 
East  and  West,  as  if  soul  and  body,  or  faith  and 
reason,  or  nature  and  man,.or  immortality  and  mortal- 
ity, are  not  two  but  one  ;  and  in  the  evidence  of  their 
unity  we  find  the  dawn  of  the  new  dynasty,  of  the 
old,  the  prehistoric  Christianity. 


16 


INDEX. 


INDEX. 


Note.  —  This  Index  is  for  the  most  part  rather  topical  than  verbal.  The 
literal  words  will  not  always  be  found  on  the  pages  referred  to.  Also  this 
Index  is  rather  selective  than  exhaustive. 


Abiogenesis,  56. 

Accuracy,  dependent  on  interest, 
127. 

Activity,  dependent  on  relation- 
ship, 43  ;  reactive  or  interactive, 
197;  as  not  serial,  212. 

Adjustment,  original,  84,  159,  220; 
derived  by  chance,  136. 

Afferent  Theory,  163,  210. 

After-image,  188. 

Anaxagoras,  his  view  of  world  and 
mind,  47. 

Animals,  conscious  and  thinking, 
19 ;  social  to  men,  91 ;  views 
about,  in  Comparative  Psychol- 
ogy, 163. 

Anthropomorphism,  59. 

Architecture,  and  space-perception, 
78. 

Aristotle,  16,  115. 

Association,  82,  174. 

Athletics, placeof, in  education,  124. 

Attention,  theories  of,  173. 

Baldwin,  187. 

Berenson,  66  n. 

Biology,  84,  136, 142,  231,  234. 

Body,  as  intelligent,  59;  as  instru- 
ment of  adjustment,  60;  its 
functions  interchangeable,  62  ; 
feeling  in,  168;  and  soul,  129, 
229. 


Causation,  57, 198. 

Change,  general  nature  of,  48 ; 
necessary  to  relationship,  52  ;  as 
reproduction,  restoration,  or 
substitution,  64. 

Chemistry,  47,  121,  233. 

Child,  and  growth  of  space-percep- 
tion, 81. 

Christ,  107,  109,    135,    231,    235, 

237. 

Christian  Science,  y^ 

Christianity,  107,  130,  220,  231, 
241. 

City,  and  country,  in  social  evolu- 
tion, 190. 

Classification,  36,  100, 138. 

Coexistence,  and  sequence,  153. 

Composition,  inner  meaning  of, 
40;  and  simplicity,  131,  230; 
and  mortality,  141,  230. 

Compulsion,    in    education,    123, 

125,  173. 

Conception,  as  dynamic,  117. 

Conception,  Immaculate,  237-8. 

Consciousness,  general  nature  of, 
17,65,  69,  89,  112,  163  j  essen- 
tially social,  23,  89  ;  individual, 
26  ;  subject  to  Law  of  Relativity, 
66 ;  related  to  life  and  thought, 
17-21 ;  organs  of,  not  limited, 
68, 105 ;  as  never  epiphenomenal, 
162. 


246 


INDEX. 


Country,  and  city,  in  social  evolu- 
tion, 190. 
Creationism,  57,  199,  203,  214. 

Decomposition,  132,  230. 

Descartes,  162. 

Determinism,  219. 

Dewey,  177  n. 

Dualism,  and  objectivity,  29;  in 
science,  56,  136,  140;  vs.  Mo- 
nism, 158  ;  in  theory  of  emotion, 
167,  of  attention,  173,  of  action, 
198,  of  will,  213,  of  effort,  210, 
of  immortality,  139,  230;  in 
education,  105,  123-6. 

Education,  illustrations  from, 
101,  105,  123-129,  169,  173. 

Effort,  210. 

Emotion,  and  interest,  167; 
theories  of,  170. 

Entelechy,  16. 

Environment,  as  organic,  54;  its 
living  mediation,  72;  natural 
and  social,  89,  118;  as  linguis- 
tic, 27,  92,  179;  as  alien,  136; 
as  originally  personal,  221. 

Epistemology,  47  n.,  114. 

Evolution,  science  of,  as  still  su- 
pernaturalistic,  136 ;  and  time, 
149,  153;  social,  five  stages  of, 
193  ;  vs.  Creationism,  203. 

Expression,  symbolic,  and  right- 
handedness,  187. 

Extension,  relation  of,  to  intension, 
36. 

Faculties,  thought  and  sensa- 
tion, 104;  Monistic  doctrine  of, 
161. 

Fechner,  67. 

Feeling,  and  interest,  167;  theories 
of,  170. 

Force,  as  nature  of  space,  yy  ;  and 
idea,  120 ;  in  relation  to  space 


and  time,  1565  a  recent  idea  of, 
233- 

Formalism,  97-106;  defined,  100; 
in  history,  10  7-1 10;  in  educa- 
tion, 123-126;  vs.  Dynamic 
Idealism,  158;  (in  theory  of 
space,  76,  of  time,  147.) 

Freedom,  and  law,  81,  115  ;  and 
will,  200,  209. 

Functions,  of  body,  interchange- 
able, 62. 

Greeks,  philosophy  of,  16,  45, 49, 
130,  192,  230,  239. 

Habit,  original,   84;  relation  of, 

to  impulse  and  instinct,  203-8. 
Hegel,  168. 

History,  and  time,  153. 
Homer,  171. 
Homoeomeries,  46-7. 

Ideas,  as  forms,  97;  as  forces,  113; 

as  not  innate,  161. 
Immaculate  Conception,  237 
Immortality,  51, 139, 155, 159.  227. 
Impulse,   relation  of,   to   instinct 

and  habit,  203-8. 
Incarnate  Word,  107,  221. 
Indeterminism,  219. 
Individuality,  36,  164,  207,  236. 
Inheritance,  39,  137,  160. 
Innervation  Theory,  163,  210. 
Inorganic,  concept  of,   criticised, 

54. 
Instinct,  relation   to  impulse  and 

habit,  203-8. 
Intelligence,     and     intelligibility, 

45;  as  essential  to  the  body,  59; 

and  language,  178-197. 
Intelligibility,  41-45. 
Intension,  and  extension,  36. 
Intuitionalism,  76. 

James,  176,  211. 


INDEX. 


247 


Kant,  190  n. 

Knowledge,  for  knowledge's  sake, 
12,  101,  124. 

Language,  true  function  of,  27; 
as  general  as  environment,  27, 
92,  179  ;  dead,  in  education, 
103,  124  ;  and  thought,  178;  as 
after-image,  188;  meaning  of 
sciences  of,  1S0;  dependence  of, 
on  control,  182  ;  and  right- 
handedness,  187  ;  three  special 
functions  of,  189  ;  illustrated  in 
social  evolution,  190. 

Life,  conscious  and  rational,  17-21, 
52  ;  not  created,  56-7  ;  universal, 
52,  54,  135;  immortal,  51,  139, 
159,  227. 

Localization,  of  sensation,  71, 
126;  of  self,  70,  160. 

Locke,  162. 

Materialism,  73,  219. 

Mathematics,  37, 47  n.,  80, 1 54, 233. 

Matter,  inorganic,  54 ;  as  not  ab- 
stract, y^;  as  conserved,  140, 
233;  as  one  with  mind,  159  ;  as 
organic,  56,  232  ;  as  immortal, 
140,  233. 

Measurement,  and  space-percep- 
tion, 79. 

Mechanicalism,  61. 

Medium,abstract,  103, 124, 162,233. 

Memory,  124,  156  n. 

Metaphysics,  and  Psychology,  vi. 

Metempsychosis,  143,  238. 

Mind,  'intrinsic  to  all  things,  45, 
99,  159  ;  as  seen  by  physical 
science,  121. 

Mixture,  infinite,  as  account  of 
relationship,  46. 

Monism,  and  objectivity,  21-29  > 
vs.  Dualism,  158  ;  in  science, 
57,  138  ;  in  theory  of  emotion, 
171,  of  attention,  174,  of  asso- 
ciation, 174,  of  action,  201,  of 


impulse,  instinct,  and  habit,  204 ; 

in  religion,  220. 
Monte  Carlo,  217,  218. 
Motion,  relativity  of,  49 ;    Greek 

paradoxes   of,  49  ;    and  space, 

78,  156  ;  as  a  relating  of  points, 

239  n. 
Motive,  and  stimulus,  172,  201. 

Negation,  value  of,  in  thought, 
20, 54 ;  fatality  of,  in  volition,  213. 
Number,  meaning  of,  36. 

Object,  of  consciousness,  21-31 ; 
as  social  institution,  22-6,  89 ; 
as  language,  27,  92  ;  organic  re- 
lation of,  to  subject,  58,  83, 117  ; 
its  living  mediation,  72. 

Objectivity,  spatial,  rational,  and 
moral,  29-30  ;  spatial,  75  ;  ra- 
tional, 97  ;  spiritual,  197  ;  and 
control,  183. 

Organic,  as  all-inclusive,  54 ;  in- 
telligence of,  59  ;  substantially 
relational,  54  ;  as  involving  sep- 
aration of  subject  and  object, 
54-8 ;  as  immortal,  142,  232  ;  as 
triumph  over  both  death  and 
birth,  236-7. 

Organs,  of  body,  never  acting  in 
isolation,  64  ;  of  sense,  unlim- 
ited in  number,  68 ;  of  conduct 
and  thought,  65,  186 ;  periphe- 
ral, 88. 

Orient,  229,  240. 

Perception,  88,  115. 
Peripheral  organs,  88. 
Personification,  221. 
Physics,  47,  121,  233. 
Plants,  as  conscious,  19. 
Plato,  130,  192,  230,  239. 
Positivism,  238. 
Practice,  and  theory,  127. 
Present,  specious,  149. 
Psychology,  and  metaphysics,  vi.; 


248 


INDEX. 


defined,  11-17  ;  socialistic,   not 
individualistic,  25. 

Qualities,  not  external  to  things, 
38  ;  common  in  association,  174. 

Reading,  psychology  of,  184. 

Recapitulation,  biological,  154;  in 
Mathematics,  155. 

Relationism,  49,  87,  143, 147,  162, 
178 ;  in  a  summary,  158. 

Relations,  substantial,  41  ;  imply- 
ing activity,  43  ;  essential  to  the 
organic,  54  ;  basis  of  intelligibil- 
ity and  intelligence,  41  ;  essence 
of  space,  77  ;  immortal,  142,  232. 

Relativity,  Law  of,  66,  114,  161, 
183. 

Religion,  the  supreme  education, 
109;  and  Dualism,  140;  in  so- 
cial evolution,  194 ;  as  a  per- 
sonal relationship  to  nature,  221. 

Reproduction,  64. 

Restoration,  after  injury,  63. 

Resurrection,  237. 

Retention,  156  n. 

Right-handedness,  186,  187  n. ;  in 
social  evolution,  192. 

Romanes,  18. 

SCHLEIERMACHER,  102,   III. 

Schopenhauer,  167. 

Science,  defined,  12  ;  supernat- 
uralism  in,  136  ;  Christian,  72,  '■> 
accuracy  of,  127 ;  illustrations 
from,  39,  56,  62,  84,  103,  120, 
136,  142,  154,  175- 

Self,  parts  of,  129. 

Self-consciousness,  90,  163. 

Sensation,  68 ;  localization  of,  71, 
126  ;  formal,  47;  not  a  separate 
faculty,  104,  161  ;  an  innate 
idea,  162;  dynamic,  113. 

Sensationalism,  76. 

Sense-organs,  see  Organs. 

Sequence,  and  coexistence,  153. 

Society,  organism,  164;  t 


190-4;  classes  in,  192;  evolu- 
tion of,  in  five  stages,  193. 

Solar  system,  motion  of,  50. 

Soul,  defined,  15-17 ;  and  body, 
129,  229;  emotion  of,  168; 
transmigration  of,  143,  238  ; 
immortality  of,  139,  159,  236. 

Space,  76;  and  time,  154,  233; 
and  motion,  78,  156. 

Spinoza,  85. 

Spiritualism,  238. 

Stimulus,  and  motive,  172,  201. 

Subject,  organic  relation  of,  to 
object,  58,  82,  i*7- 

Substitution,  after  injury,  63. 

Summaries,  28,  47,  87,  106,  158, 

237- 
Supernaturalism,  136,  219,  235. 

Theory,  and  practice,  127. 

Thing,  individual,  as  a  relation,  35. 

Thinker,  duty  of,  20,  102. 

Thought,  relation  of,  to  life  and 
consciousness,  17-21;  as  not 
separate  from  sensation,  161  ; 
and  language,  178  ;  as  rehearsal 
or  activity  to  self,  181;  special 
organs  of,  65,  186. 

Time,  not  formal,  147;  and  evo- 
lution, 149;  paradoxes  of,  149; 
and  space,  154. 

Transmigration,  of  the  soul,  143, 
238. 

Travel,  two  views  of,  48. 

Unit,  vital,  immortality  of,  142 ; 

as  only  an  abstraction,  235. 
University,  and  technical  schools, 

127. 

Vital  Unit,  immortality  of,  142; 
as  only  an  abstraction,  235. 

Weber,  67. 

Will,  209;  and  deed,  214;  media- 

tive,  not  creative,  216,  220. 
Word  Incarnate,  107,  221. 


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